Worksheet Grade 11 Art & Music

Havenlock Water Tower Elevation: A Scale Drawing Sheet

Grade 11 students size a dimensioned elevation of a fictional water tower, choose a scale that fits the sheet, and set the drawing's text and scale bar.

Grade: Grade 11
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Worksheet
Time: 40 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

HSN-Q.A.1 Common Core Math

Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in graphs and data displays.

How this material aligns: Items 2 through 8 convert tower dimensions in feet into drawn inches at a stated scale, keeping units consistent across a multi-step drawing setup.

All materials for HSN-Q.A.1 →

HSG-MG.A.1 Common Core Math

Use geometric shapes, their measures, and their properties to describe objects (e.g., modeling a tree trunk or a human torso as a cylinder).

How this material aligns: Item 9 has students treat the tank as a cylinder and use its measured diameter and depth to state the capacity in the drawing's title block.

All materials for HSG-MG.A.1 →

HSG-MG.A.3 Common Core Math

Apply geometric methods to solve design problems (e.g., designing an object or structure to satisfy physical constraints or minimize cost).

How this material aligns: Items 3, 5, 7, and 8 make students test candidate scales against the sheet's live area and select the one that satisfies that physical limit.

All materials for HSG-MG.A.3 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will convert full-size dimensions into drawn dimensions at a stated scale.
Students will select the largest scale that fits a drawing inside a fixed live area.
Students will explain why a scale drawing carries both a written scale and a graphic scale bar.

Vocabulary

Key words: elevation, scale, live area, scale bar, title block

Teacher overview

An elevation is a flat, straight-on drawing of a structure with every dimension held to one scale, and it is the drawing a utility hands to the public when it explains a project. This worksheet uses the fictional Havenlock Water District's elevated storage tank as the subject. Students test two candidate scales against a fixed sheet, choose the one that fits, size the annotation, and state the tank's capacity in the title block. The common error the answer key addresses is treating a scale as adjustable partway through a drawing, which is what happens when a student shrinks the pedestal to make room for a label.

Havenlock Water Tower Elevation: A Scale Drawing Sheet — Grade 11 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The fictional Havenlock Water District is drawing an elevation of its water tower. The tank is a cylinder 45 feet across and 32 feet tall. It sits on a pedestal 60 feet tall. The drawing goes on a sheet 8.5 inches wide and 11 inches tall. The margins are 0.75 inches on every side, so the live area is 7 inches wide and 9.5 inches tall. Use 72 points to the inch.

For item 9, use these two constants. A cylinder's volume in cubic feet equals 0.785 times the diameter squared times the depth. One cubic foot holds 7.48 gallons.

How tall is the tower from the ground to the top of the tank?
The first scale tried is 1 inch to 10 feet. How tall is the tower on the drawing?
The live area is 9.5 inches tall. How much clearance is left in total above and below the drawing at that scale?
At the same scale, how wide is the tank on the drawing?
The live area is 7 inches wide. How much width is left over?
The drafter next tries 1 inch to 8 feet. How tall is the tower on the drawing at that scale?
Does the drawing from item 6 fit the 9.5 inch live height? Give the amount by which it fits or misses.
Scales here are written as 1 inch to a whole number of feet. Which is the largest scale of that kind that still fits the live height?
The title block must state the tank's capacity. Use the two constants above with the tank's 45 foot diameter and 32 foot depth. How many gallons does the tank hold, to the nearest gallon?
District drawing standards set the smallest dimension text at one tenth of an inch tall. What is that height in points?
A graphic scale bar on this drawing represents 50 feet. At 1 inch to 10 feet, how long is the bar?
Explain why the drawing carries both a written scale and a graphic scale bar.
A classmate suggests stretching the tower taller so it fills the sheet, while leaving the tank width alone. Explain what that does to the drawing.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: 92 feet. Adding the 60 foot pedestal to the 32 foot tank gives 92 feet.
Answer: 9.2 inches. Dividing 92 feet by 10 feet per inch gives 9.2 inches.
Answer: 0.3 inches. Subtracting the 9.2 inch drawing from the 9.5 inch live height leaves 0.3 inches of clearance.
Answer: 4.5 inches. Dividing the 45 foot diameter by 10 feet per inch gives 4.5 inches.
Answer: 2.5 inches. Subtracting 4.5 inches from the 7 inch live width leaves 2.5 inches.
Answer: 11.5 inches. Dividing 92 feet by 8 feet per inch gives 11.5 inches.
Answer: No, it misses by 2 inches. The 11.5 inch drawing is 2 inches taller than the 9.5 inch live height, so that scale is rejected.
Answer: 1 inch to 10 feet. The 92 foot height divided by the number of feet per inch has to give 9.5 inches or less, so the feet per inch must be at least 9.68, and 10 is the smallest whole number that satisfies it. A larger scale such as 1 inch to 9 feet gives 10.2 inches and overruns the sheet.
Answer: 380,493 gallons. The tank volume is 0.785 times 45 squared times 32, which is 0.785 times 2,025 times 32, or 50,868 cubic feet. Multiplying by 7.48 gallons per cubic foot gives 380,492.64, which rounds to 380,493 gallons.
Answer: 7.2 points. Multiplying one tenth of an inch by 72 points per inch gives 7.2 points.
Answer: 5 inches. Dividing 50 feet by 10 feet per inch gives 5 inches.
Answer: The written scale is only true at the printed size. A copier or a projector changes the sheet size, and the written scale then reports a ratio the paper no longer holds. The graphic bar is printed art, so it grows and shrinks with the drawing and can still be measured against the tower.
Answer: It breaks the single scale the drawing depends on. Stretching the height alone means vertical distances read at one scale and horizontal distances at another, so any measurement taken off the sheet is wrong and the tank looks narrower than it is.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a filled conversion strip that lists 10 feet, 20 feet, 50 feet, and 92 feet with their drawn lengths at 1 inch to 10 feet, so students verify rather than compute in items 2 through 5. Work item 6 with a small group, and give item 9 with the squared diameter already shown as 2,025 so the arithmetic starts one step in.

Extension

Ask students to redraw the same tower on a sheet 11 inches wide and 8.5 inches tall, which reverses the live area to 9.5 inches wide and 7 inches tall. They should state the largest whole-foot scale that fits, show the arithmetic, and write two sentences on what the wider sheet lets them add to the drawing that the taller sheet did not.

ELL supports

Pre-teach elevation, scale, live area, scale bar, and title block against a labeled sample drawing, and keep that sample posted for the whole period. Provide a bilingual card that pairs feet with inches and points. Allow items 12 and 13 to be answered with a labeled sketch of two towers plus a short phrase, and offer the frame "The drawing is wrong because ___."

Extensions

Have students add a dimension layer to the drawing: extension lines, arrowheads, and three dimension strings for the pedestal height, the tank height, and the tank diameter. Ask them to place every dimension outside the drawn object rather than across it, then write one sentence on why drafting practice puts dimensions in the margin. This is also a good moment to name the drafters and civil engineering technicians who produce these sheets, and to note that the work is reached through certificate programs, associate degrees, and four-year degrees alike.