Project Grade 6 Art & Music
Stippled Microscope Plates for the Stillford Operators' Field Guide
A five-session grade 6 project in which students stipple black-ink drawings of floc, ciliates, rotifers, and filaments for a fictional wastewater plant's field guide.
Objectives
- Students will build value with stippling by controlling how closely they place their dots.
- Students will design a plate layout that places the drawing, name, caption, and scale bar in a clear reading order.
- Students will write captions that explain what each organism tells an operator about the treatment process.
- Students will revise their plates using the results of a partner's field test.
Vocabulary
- Floc
- Floc is the fluffy clumps of dirt and treatment chemicals that form in the water during cleaning at a treatment plant. Floc looks like tiny snowflakes drifting in the water.
Also: stippling, value, scientific illustration, layout, ciliate, rotifer, filament
Teacher overview
At a wastewater treatment plant, bacteria in the aeration tank break down the waste in sewage, and they gather into clumps called flocs that later settle out of the water in a clarifier. At many plants, operators put a drop from the aeration tank under a microscope as often as once a day, because the kinds of tiny organisms they see tell them whether this living process is healthy. In this five-session project, students act as scientific illustrators for the Stillford Water Reclamation Plant, a fictional plant, and produce four stippled black-ink plates and a cover card for a pocket field guide that new operators will carry. The driving question asks how drawings can help a new operator tell a healthy process from a troubled one.
A common misconception is that stippling means covering an area with dots and that dark areas come from bigger dots. In stippling, value comes mainly from how close together the dots are, and the white paper left between them is the light, so students spend the first session learning to control dot density before they draw a single organism. Teachers can build the reference cards from any public operator training guide or microscope atlas for activated sludge, redrawing each organism simply and adding a scale bar.
Project Brief
Driving question: How can four black-ink drawings help a new operator tell a healthy treatment process from a troubled one?
Scenario: The Stillford Water Reclamation Plant is a fictional plant for this project. Its lead operator wants a small field guide for new workers. Each day, operators put a drop of water from the aeration tank under a microscope. They look for four things. The photos in the old guide are blurry, and they turn gray and muddy when they are copied. The lead operator has asked your class for clear ink drawings instead.
What operators look for:
- Floc: This is a clump of bacteria and other bits. The bacteria eat the waste in the water. Firm, rounded flocs sink well, and that helps clean the water.
- Stalked ciliate: This is a bell-shaped cell on a thin stalk. Tiny hairs around its rim sweep loose bacteria into it. When there are many of them, the process is usually healthy.
- Rotifer: This is a tiny animal with a crown of moving hairs. The crown looks like a spinning wheel. Rotifers show up when the process is steady and mature.
- Filament: This is a long thread of bacteria. A few filaments help hold flocs together. Too many keep the flocs from sinking in the settling tank, so cloudy water can flow out.
Constraints set by the lead operator:
- Make four plates, one for each thing above, plus one cover card.
- Each plate is a card 5 inches wide and 7 inches tall.
- Use black ink only. The guide will be photocopied.
- Show light and dark with stippling. Do not use smudges or gray washes, because they turn muddy on a copy.
- Each plate must show the drawing, the name, a caption of two sentences, and the scale bar from the reference card.
- The name on each plate must be at least one-quarter inch tall, so a worker can read it at arm's length.
- Draw by looking at the reference cards. Do not trace them.
Final deliverable: Turn in a set of four plates and a cover card to your teacher, who will act as Stillford's lead operator. The cover card has a title and a short paragraph that tells a new operator how to use the guide.
Milestones
- Session 1, learn the subjects and the dot: Study the four reference cards. Write one note for each card that tells what it shows an operator. Then stipple a value scale with five boxes. Go from a few scattered dots in the first box to dots packed almost solid in the last box. Output: four notes and one finished value scale.
- Session 2, plan the plates: Draw a small thumbnail sketch for each plate. Decide where the drawing, name, caption, and scale bar go so the eye reads them in that order. Try two different layouts for one plate, and circle the one that reads more clearly. Output: four thumbnails, with one plate shown two ways.
- Session 3, pencil and first ink: Lightly draw each subject in pencil at full size on its card. Ink the outlines with the fine pen. Begin stippling two of the plates, working from the darkest areas out to the lightest. Output: two plates with their outlines inked and most of their stippling done.
- Session 4, finish and letter: Finish the stippling on all four plates. Add each name, caption, and scale bar. Write the cover card. Output: four finished plates and a finished cover card.
- Session 5, field test and present: Photocopy your plates. A partner uses only the copies to match four unlabeled mystery sketches to the right plates. Fix any plate that led to a wrong match. Then show one plate to the class and explain one design choice you made. Output: a field-test record, any revised plates, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stippling and value | Value is shown with smudges, lines, or uneven dots that do not form clear light and dark areas | Dots show some light and dark areas, but changes in density are abrupt or the dots clump into lines | Dot density changes smoothly, so each subject reads as rounded or layered, and no washes or smudges are used | Dot density is controlled with precision, so the subjects show form and texture and still read clearly on the photocopy |
| Layout and legibility | Plates are missing a required part or the name is too small to read at arm's length | All parts are present, but the reading order is confusing or parts crowd one another | Drawing, name, caption, and scale bar follow a clear reading order with the name at least one-quarter inch tall | The layout is clear and consistent across all four plates, so a reader knows where to look on every card |
| Scientific accuracy | Drawings or captions confuse two subjects or give wrong information about what they tell an operator | Drawings show the right subjects, but key features such as the stalk or the crown of hairs are missing, or a caption is vague | Each drawing shows the key features from its reference card, and each caption correctly states what the subject tells an operator | Drawings and captions are accurate, and the captions help an operator compare a healthy sign with a warning sign |
| Field test and revision | No field test was completed or no changes were made after a wrong match | The field test was done, but revisions do not address the plate that caused a wrong match | The student revised any plate that caused a wrong match and can say what was changed | The student made targeted revisions and explains in the presentation how the change made the plate easier to identify |
Differentiation
Support
Provide a pre-drawn value-scale strip with five empty boxes and one completed example box, so students can match its density. For two of the four plates, give a light pencil contour of the subject that students ink and stipple, and let them draw the other two by looking. Provide caption frames such as "This is a ___. When an operator sees many of them, it means ___." Allow extra time in Session 4.
Extension
Ask students to make a second version of one plate using hatching, which builds value with close parallel lines, instead of stippling. After both versions are photocopied, the student compares them side by side and writes a short note to the lead operator recommending one method for the rest of the guide, with reasons based on how each copy looks.
ELL supports
Post the four reference cards with each organism's name, a simple sketch, and a one-word label for what it tells an operator, such as "healthy" or "warning." Pre-teach stippling, value, floc, and caption with the value-scale strip as the visual. Allow captions to be written with a partner, and let students present their design choice by pointing to the plate and using sentence starters such as "I placed the name here because..."
Extensions
If a local wastewater plant offers tours or classroom visits, the class can ask whether an operator would look at the finished plates and describe how they compare with what operators see through the microscope. Students then record one suggestion from the operator and decide whether it calls for a change in the drawing, the caption, or the layout.