Project Grade 4 Art & Music

High-Visibility Vests for the Redpoll Crossing Pipe Crew

Grade 4 art teams design safety vests for a fictional water main repair crew, testing which colors and stripes show up by day and in headlights, then lettering the back.

Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Project
Time: 4 sessions, ~180 min total
Prep: Moderate prep
Materials: Four test samples per team, each about 3 by 5 inches: black paper, white paper, fluorescent yellow-green or orange paper, and a strip of reflective tape, One flashlight per team, A vest template sheet per team with a front view and a back view outlined side by side, Markers, including a fluorescent highlighter color, a dark blue or black, and one accent color, Silver or light gray colored pencils for the reflective stripes, Scrap paper and rulers for lettering practice, A way to darken the classroom, such as blinds and the light switch

Standards

W.4.1 Common Core ELA

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

How this material aligns: In Session 4 each team writes a letter to the fictional crew chief stating that its vest design should be chosen and supporting that opinion with at least three reasons drawn from its visibility test and the stripe and lettering rules, with a concluding sentence. The design and drawing work is art content and is not claimed under this standard.

All materials for W.4.1 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-24.

Objectives

Students will describe the order of tasks a pipe crew carries out to repair a broken water main.
Students will explain from their own test why fluorescent color helps in daylight and reflective stripes help in headlights.
Students will design a vest whose stripes line up from front to back and whose lettering can be read from across a room.
Students will write an opinion letter that supports their design with reasons from their test and the design rules.

Vocabulary

Water main: A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.
Valve: A valve is a device in a pipe that operators can open or close to control where water flows. Valves let crews shut off one street for repairs without turning off the whole town.

Also: pipe crew, fluorescent, reflective, contrast, block letters, legible

Teacher overview

A water main breaks somewhere in the United States roughly every two minutes, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, and each break sends a utility's pipe crew into the street, often at night and often beside moving traffic. This project uses the fictional town of Redpoll Crossing, whose water department wants new safety vests for its main repair crew. Over four sessions, teams learn what the crew does during a repair, test which materials show up in daylight and in headlights, design the front and back of a vest, and write a letter recommending their design to the crew chief, played by the teacher or a visiting adult.

The design problem is drawn from real practice, since workers near traffic wear high-visibility clothing whose two main parts do different jobs. The bright fluorescent color makes a worker stand out in daylight and at dusk, while the silver reflective stripes send headlight beams straight back toward the driver, which is what makes a worker visible at night. The stripes go all the way around the body and over the shoulders so the worker can be seen from any side.

The misconception this project is built around is the belief, common among fourth graders, that a fluorescent vest shines at night the way a glow stick does. In the Session 1 test, the fluorescent sample usually looks brightest of the four with the room lights on, yet in a dark room it shows up only where the flashlight lands, much as the white paper does, while the reflective tape flashes brightly back at the person holding the flashlight. The test works best when students hold the flashlight next to their own eyes, the way a driver's eyes sit just behind the headlights. A second misconception concerns the job itself, since students may picture the crew only as people who dig. The job card in the brief lays out the sequence a crew actually follows, from closing valves to testing the water, and teams use it to decide what the crew will be doing while it wears the vest.

High-Visibility Vests for the Redpoll Crossing Pipe Crew — Grade 4 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Project Brief

Driving question: How can a vest keep a pipe crew safe by making the workers easy to see in daylight and at night?

The crew: Redpoll Crossing is a fictional town. Water reaches every home through big pipes under the streets. These pipes are called water mains. Sometimes a main cracks and water gushes up into the street. Then the town's pipe crew goes to work, day or night. Here are the crew's steps:

Close the valves near the break to stop the water.
Set up cones and signs so drivers slow down.
Dig down to the broken pipe.
Fix the crack or put in a new piece of pipe.
Flush the pipe and test the water before people use it again.

Most of this work happens in the street, close to cars. Drivers need to see the crew from far away. Many crew members learn the job by working with skilled crew members. In many states, workers who run a water pipe system must also pass a test to earn a license.

The job: The crew chief wants new vests. Your team will design one. You will draw the front and the back on a template.

Design rules:

Use one bright fluorescent color for the whole vest. Pick yellow-green or orange.
Draw one silver reflective stripe all the way around the middle of the vest.
Draw two more silver stripes that go up over the shoulders, from the front to the back.
The stripes on your front view and back view must line up at the sides and at the shoulders.
On the back, letter the words WATER CREW in block capital letters. Make each letter at least 1 inch tall. Do not put any letters on a stripe.
On the front, add a small name box on the chest and the words Redpoll Crossing. Nothing may cover a stripe.
Use no more than three colors, plus the silver stripes: the fluorescent color, one dark color for letters, and one more color if you want it.
Your back lettering must be legible, which means easy to read, from across the classroom.

What you turn in:

A visibility test chart from Session 1.
A lettering test strip.
A colored front view and back view of your vest.
A letter to the crew chief. It tells why the crew should pick your vest. Give at least three reasons, and end with a closing sentence.

Milestones

Session 1 (Meet the crew and test the samples): Read the crew's steps with your team. Talk about which steps happen in the street. Then test your four samples. First, with the room lights on, stand back and rank them from easiest to hardest to see. Next, darken the room. Hold the flashlight next to your eyes and shine it at the samples. Rank them again. Write both rankings on a chart. Write one sentence about what surprised you. Output: a test chart with two rankings and a sentence.
Session 2 (Test your lettering): On scrap paper, write WATER CREW three ways: in thin letters, in thick block letters, and in thick block letters with more space between them. Use your dark color on a patch of fluorescent color. Tape the strip to the far wall. Walk to the other side of the room and decide which one is easiest to read. Output: a lettering test strip with the best one circled.
Session 3 (Design the vest): Color the whole vest template with your fluorescent color. Draw the stripe around the middle and the two shoulder stripes. Check that they line up on the front and back views. Add your best lettering to the back. Add the name box and the town's name to the front. Output: a finished front view and back view.
Session 4 (Check, write, and present): Pin your vest drawing to the wall and check the lettering from across the room one more time. Use your test chart to write your letter to the crew chief. Read your letter aloud and show your vest. Output: your letter and a short 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
Color and stripes	The vest is not fluorescent, or stripes are missing from the front or the back	The vest is fluorescent, but a stripe is missing or the stripes do not line up at the sides or shoulders	The vest is fluorescent, and the middle stripe and both shoulder stripes line up on the front and back views	Color and stripes meet every rule, and the team can explain which part helps in daylight and which helps in headlights, using its own test results
Lettering	Letters are thin, crowded, or on a stripe, and cannot be read from across the room	Letters are block capitals but are too small, too close together, or low in contrast	Block capital letters at least 1 inch tall, in a dark color on the fluorescent color, can be read from across the room	Lettering is bold, evenly spaced, and centered between the stripes, and the team's test strip shows why this choice was the clearest of the three
Layout and color limit	More than three colors are used, or something covers a stripe	The color limit is met, but the name box or town name is missing or crowds a stripe	Three colors or fewer are used with the silver stripes, and the name box and town name are placed without covering any stripe	The layout is balanced, with the front and back reading as one vest, and every added detail has a clear reason
Letter to the crew chief	The letter is missing or gives no opinion	The letter gives an opinion with one or two reasons	The letter states an opinion, gives at least three reasons tied to the test or the rules, and ends with a closing sentence	The letter states an opinion, gives three or more reasons, uses linking words such as "because" and "also," and connects the vest to a step in the crew's work

Differentiation

Support

Give these teams a vest template with the stripe positions marked in dotted lines on both views, so their task in Session 3 is to trace and color the stripes and check that they meet. Provide a test chart with four boxes already labeled for the samples. For the letter, offer a frame: "We think the crew should choose our vest because ___. Our test showed that ___. Also, ___. Please choose our vest for the Redpoll Crossing pipe crew."

Extension

Ask these teams to design a matching cap or hard-hat band that follows the same color and stripe rules, and to explain in two sentences how it adds to what drivers can see. A further challenge is to test one more sample, such as a bicycle reflector or a strip of aluminum foil, and to explain why it did or did not flash back like the reflective tape.

ELL supports

Teach bright, dark, shine, stripe, and letter with the four test samples and the flashlight, saying each word during the demonstration. Post the crew's five steps with a small picture beside each one. Allow students to complete the test chart by placing the samples in order and drawing arrows instead of writing, and let the letter use the sentence frame with short phrases rehearsed with a partner.

Extensions

If the local water utility or public works department can send a crew member to visit, ask the visitor to bring a real safety vest and hard hat, and have students compare the real stripe layout with their designs. Students can also look for high-visibility clothing on road crews, crossing guards, and bus drivers in the neighborhood and sketch one example, noting where its stripes run and which colors it uses.