Lesson plan Grade 9 Art & Music
Designing a Fenwick Shoals PFAS Notice: Color and Icon Lesson
Grade 9 art students design a clear, non-alarming public water notice about PFAS, applying color meaning, iconography, and accessible plain-language layout.
Objectives
- Students will design a one-page public notice that a resident can understand and act on quickly.
- Students will use color, icons, and layout that stay readable for colorblind and low-vision readers.
- Students will explain how a calm, plain-language design builds trust better than alarming graphics.
Vocabulary
Key words: public notice, iconography, plain language, accessibility, color meaning, contrast
Teacher overview
When a utility finds a contaminant such as PFAS, it must tell customers, and the design of that notice decides whether people understand what to do. A notice that is crowded, jargon-heavy, or colored like a hazard sign can frighten readers without informing them. This lesson has students design a calm, clear one-page notice for Fenwick Shoals, a fictional water district, that explains a PFAS finding and the district's plan in plain language. Because a public notice has to reach every reader, the lesson treats accessibility as a design requirement rather than an afterthought, including color choices that still work for readers who cannot distinguish red from green.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Project two versions of the same notice, one in dense paragraphs with a large red warning banner and one with short sections, calm color, and a clear next step. Ask which one they would actually read and act on, and why the frightening one may work less well.
Direct instruction: color, icons, plain language, and accessibility (13 min): Define public notice, iconography, plain language, contrast, and accessibility. Explain that PFAS regulation is still changing: the enforceable limit (maximum contaminant level) for PFOA and PFOS is 4 parts per trillion each, set in 2024, and water systems must meet it by April 2029. In May 2026 EPA proposed letting eligible systems apply for a two-year exemption, to April 2031; it would not be an automatic extension for every system, the limit itself would not change, and the proposal was not final as of September 2026. Because the rule is still in motion, an honest notice explains a plan rather than a finished fix. Show how color carries meaning, why relying on color alone excludes colorblind readers, and how pairing each color with an icon and a word makes a notice readable for everyone.
Guided analysis: confusing versus clear (10 min): In pairs, students compare a confusing sample notice with a clear one and list three specific design choices that make the clear one easier to act on, such as a short headline, an icon beside each step, and adequate contrast between text and background.
Studio: design the advisory graphic (20 min): Each student designs a one-page Fenwick Shoals notice with a plain headline, three short labeled sections (what we found, what it means, what we are doing), an icon beside each section, and a color scheme checked against the colorblind-safe reference card. Circulate and ask each student how their design would read to someone who cannot tell red from green.
Gallery check and exit ticket (7 min): Post drafts and have students walk the gallery, placing a small mark on any notice they could act on in under a minute. As an exit ticket, each student writes the one design choice they made specifically to keep the notice calm and trustworthy rather than alarming.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a layout template with the three section boxes and headline already placed, plus a small set of pre-drawn icons students can adapt, so their effort goes into color, contrast, and wording. Supply a plain-language word bank for the three section labels.
Extension
Ask students to design a matching short-form version for a phone screen, keeping the same meaning in a narrower vertical layout, and to write a note explaining which elements they cut and why the message still holds.
ELL supports
Pre-teach notice, contrast, icon, and advisory with a labeled example and a home-language gloss where possible. Provide sentence frames for the three sections, such as "What we found: ___." Allow students to design a second-language version of their notice as an extension of the same layout.
Extensions
Students can compare the notice-design conventions used by a real water utility, a transit agency, and a public-health department, then write a short reflection on which conventions build trust and which merely follow habit. This positions design as a civic tool that shapes how well people can respond to public information.