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Classroom activity Grade 8 Art & Music

Replacing Brightwater's Lead Lines: A Storyboard Studio

A grade 8 art activity where teams storyboard how a town replaces its lead service lines, showing a public policy step by step as sequential art.

Objectives

  1. Students will storyboard the steps a town takes to replace its lead service lines.
  2. Students will show a public policy's purpose, how it is carried out, and its result across ordered panels.
  3. Students will use panel order, framing, and captions so a viewer can follow the sequence without help.

Vocabulary

Service line
A service line is the small pipe that connects the water main under the street to the plumbing inside one home or building. It is the last leg of the trip water makes to your tap.
Lead (Pb)
A soft gray metal that is poisonous, especially for children. It can get into drinking water from old pipes and plumbing, so utilities work hard to control it.

Also: storyboard, public policy, sequence

Teacher overview

A storyboard is a row of drawn panels that tells a process in order, the same tool used to plan films and instructions. This is a partner activity for pairs, in which students storyboard how a fictional town, Brightwater, replaces the old lead pipes that connect the water main to people's homes. A service line made of lead can add lead to drinking water, and a federal rule now pushes water systems to find and replace nearly all of them. A storyboard requires students to put a public policy into the right order: why it is happening, how the town carries it out, and what changes for residents at the end. EPA estimates, from the service line inventories utilities reported in 2025, that about 4 million lead service lines still remain in United States water systems, so this is a real program many towns are running now.

Activity Directions

  1. Set the scene with the reason for the policy. Explain that some older homes are still connected to the water main by a service line made of lead, which can add lead to tap water. The lead action level is 15 parts per billion, and the federal Lead and Copper Rule Improvements lower it to 10 parts per billion in 2027 and push systems to replace nearly all lead service lines within about ten years.
  2. Hand each pair the printed step list of a replacement program and a six-panel storyboard sheet. Read the steps together so every pair shares the same sequence.
  3. Explain the three parts a good storyboard must show: the purpose (why the town starts), the carrying out (the steps crews and the utility take), and the consequence (what is better at the end).
  4. Panels 1 and 2, the purpose (10 minutes): pairs draw why the program begins, such as the utility mapping which homes still have lead lines and notifying those residents.
  5. Panels 3 and 4, the carrying out (15 minutes): pairs draw the town doing the work, such as crews digging to the old line and swapping the lead pipe for a safe one, with a caption under each panel.
  6. Panels 5 and 6, the consequence (12 minutes): pairs draw the result, such as clean water at the tap and a record showing the home is now lead-free, with a short caption.
  7. Each panel gets a one-line caption so a viewer can follow the sequence without a narrator. Pairs check that the panels read clearly from 1 to 6.
  8. Gallery walk (8 minutes): pairs post their storyboards. Students walk the room and, for each one, check whether they can follow the policy from purpose to result using only the panels and captions.
  9. The activity ends after the gallery walk; gather the class for the debrief.
  10. Debrief questions: "What was the purpose of the program, and how did your panels show it?" and "Which consequence panel best showed why the policy was worth the cost and disruption?"

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

Answer Key

  1. Debrief question: "What was the purpose of the program, and how did your panels show it?" Answer: The purpose is to protect people's health by removing lead pipes that can add lead to drinking water. Strong storyboards show this in the opening panels, for example the utility finding which homes have lead service lines and warning residents, so a viewer understands why the digging and expense in the later panels are happening.

  2. Debrief question: "Which consequence panel best showed why the policy was worth the cost and disruption?" Answer: Accept any final panel that makes the benefit concrete, such as safe water at a family's tap, a home marked lead-free in the town's records, or a neighborhood where every line has been replaced. The point is that the ending panel should connect the cost and mess of the work back to a clear public benefit, which is how a policy's consequences are judged.

Differentiation

Support

Provide the six panels already labeled with their role (purpose, purpose, carrying out, carrying out, consequence, consequence) and a short caption bank, so pairs can focus on the drawing and the order rather than on planning the whole sequence.

Extension

Ask pairs to add a seventh panel showing a problem the town might hit, such as a resident who does not want their yard dug up, and a caption explaining how the utility could respond while still meeting the policy.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "service line," "replace," and "policy" with a simple diagram of a house, a pipe, and a water main. Allow captions to be short phrases or labeled arrows, and permit the debrief answers to be given orally or by pointing to the panels.