Project Grade 11 Art & Music
Ashgrove Water Museum: A Three-Panel Exhibit Design
Over four sessions, grade 11 teams design three exhibit panels for a fictional town water museum, working to fixed panel sizes, type minimums, and a print allowance.
Objectives
- Students will design three exhibit panels that meet stated size, type, and margin requirements.
- Students will draw one-tenth scale mock-ups and specify every type size on a written spec sheet.
- Students will price the panel set against a stated print allowance and defend the layout to a review board.
Vocabulary
Key words: exhibit panel, mock-up, spec sheet, viewing distance, print allowance
Teacher overview
Small municipal museums and utility visitor centers explain local water systems on a handful of wall panels, and those panels have to work for a visitor who stops for less than a minute. Over four sessions, teams design a three-panel exhibit for the fictional Ashgrove Water Museum on where the town's water comes from, how much of it the town uses, and who keeps the system running. Panel size, minimum type sizes, and a print allowance are all fixed by the fictional museum, so the design problem is what to cut rather than what to add. Each team turns in three scaled mock-ups, a written specification sheet, and a short presentation to a review board played by classmates.
Project Brief
Driving question. How do we explain a town's water system on three panels that a visitor can read in under a minute?
Client. The fictional Ashgrove Water Museum is a small town museum with one exhibit room. Its board has asked your team for a three-panel wall about the town water system. The board will hear your presentation in the final session.
Panel content. Panel 1 covers where Ashgrove's water comes from and how it reaches a tap. It must include a system diagram drawn to a stated scale. Panel 2 covers how much water the town uses and how that has changed over ten years. It must include one data graphic. Panel 3 covers the people who run the system. It must show the full range of routes into that work, which includes entering after high school with on-the-job training and a state operator license, finishing a certificate program, earning a four-year engineering degree, and going on to graduate study.
Ashgrove water data. The museum supplies the fictional figures below, taken from the fictional Ashgrove Water Department's annual reports, for Panel 2. Teams cite them as "Ashgrove Water Department annual reports" on the panel and in the content inventory.
| Year | Population served | Average daily water use (million gallons) |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 11,800 | 1.62 |
| 2016 | 12,100 | 1.60 |
| 2018 | 12,500 | 1.63 |
| 2020 | 12,800 | 1.58 |
| 2022 | 13,100 | 1.57 |
| 2024 | 13,400 | 1.55 |
Constraints.
- Each panel is 900 mm wide and 1200 mm tall. All three panels are the same size.
- Margins are at least 60 mm on every edge of every panel.
- Headlines are at least 90 points. Body text is at least 24 points. Captions and credits are at least 18 points. These are the fictional museum's own minimums.
- Visitors read headlines from about 4 meters away and body text from about 1.5 meters away.
- The fictional print allowance is $180 for the team. Panels print at a fictional rate of $40 per square meter of panel.
- No panel may carry more than 150 words of body text.
Final deliverable. Three mock-ups drawn at one tenth of full size, so each measures 90 mm by 120 mm. One spec sheet listing every type size, the margins, the colors, the panel area, and the total print cost. One presentation of five minutes to the museum board.
Milestones
- Session 1, content inventory. The team lists what each panel must say and ranks it. Every panel gets three levels: one headline, one main statement, and the supporting detail. The team also names the source of each fact it plans to use and marks any fact it cannot support. Output is a one-page content inventory with the three levels filled in for all three panels.
- Session 2, thumbnails and the data decision. The team draws three thumbnail layouts for each panel, nine in all, on a marked grid. It then decides what quantity Panel 2's graphic will show and writes one sentence defending that choice against one rejected alternative. Output is nine thumbnails with one circled per panel, plus the written data decision.
- Session 3, scaled mock-ups and cost. The team draws the three chosen layouts at one tenth of full size. Every text block is marked with the type size it will be set at, and the team checks each size against the museum minimums. The team also completes the cost sheet, giving the area of one panel, the area of all three, and the total print cost against the fictional allowance. Output is three mock-ups plus a completed cost sheet.
- Session 4, spec sheet and board presentation. The team writes the spec sheet and presents to the museum board. The presentation must name one thing the team cut and say why. Output is the spec sheet and a five minute presentation.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hierarchy and legibility | Panels have no clear ranking of elements, or type sizes fall below the museum minimums | Three levels are present on some panels, and one or two type sizes miss the minimums | All three panels show three clear levels, and every specified type size meets the minimums | Three clear levels on every panel, all minimums met, and the team explains how each size relates to the stated viewing distance |
| Scale and specification | Mock-ups are not drawn to the stated scale, or the spec sheet is missing key sizes | Mock-ups are near the stated scale, and the spec sheet omits some sizes or margins | Mock-ups are drawn at one tenth of full size, and the spec sheet lists every type size, margin, and color | Mock-ups and spec sheet agree exactly, and the sheet includes a note on what changes if the panel size changes |
| Data graphic on Panel 2 | The graphic has no stated quantity, or the axis or key is missing | A quantity is named, yet the axis, origin, or key leaves the reader guessing | The quantity is named, the axis and key are complete, and the origin is stated | All of Proficient, and the team names the rejected alternative quantity and gives a reason a visitor would accept |
| Careers panel and range of paths | Panel 3 shows one route into the work, or none | Panel 3 names several routes but treats one as the standard and the rest as fallbacks | Panel 3 shows the full range of routes and presents each as a legitimate path | All of Proficient, and the panel connects at least two routes to specific tasks in the Ashgrove system shown on Panel 1 |
| Cost and board presentation | The cost sheet is incomplete, or the presentation does not address the constraints | Costs are estimated without the area work shown, and the presentation covers the design only | The cost sheet shows panel area and total cost within the fictional allowance, and the presentation names one cut and its reason | All of Proficient, and the team answers a board question about a tradeoff without abandoning a stated constraint |
Differentiation
Support
Give the team a content inventory sheet with the three hierarchy levels already ruled and one panel filled in as a model, so Session 1 begins from an example rather than a blank page. Provide the panel area already computed on the cost sheet so the team's arithmetic starts at the multiplication step. Supply a printed type-specimen strip showing the minimum sizes at full size, so a team can compare rather than imagine. Assign the spec sheet to a student who prefers a defined, checkable task.
Extension
Ask the team to design a fourth panel for a different audience, either elementary school groups or a Spanish-speaking visitor, and to state every change it makes to type size, word count, and image ratio. The team should then write a short recommendation on whether the museum should print two versions of the same wall or one version that serves both, with the reasoning tied to its own layout evidence rather than to preference.
ELL supports
Pre-teach panel, mock-up, spec sheet, and viewing distance against a labeled sample panel that stays posted for all four sessions. Provide a bilingual glossary card for those terms plus headline, caption, and margin. Allow the Session 2 data decision and the Session 4 presentation to be delivered with an annotated drawing and short phrases rather than continuous prose, and offer the frame "We cut ___ because a visitor has time to read ___."
Extensions
Have teams mount their mock-ups on a wall at the correct relative spacing and view them from across the room, then mark on tracing paper what they could still read from that distance. Teams revise one element based on what failed the test. A class that has access to a local utility or museum can compare its panels against real interpretive signage and write a single question it would ask the person who designed it.