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Classroom activity Grade 1 Careers & CTE

Blue Lines on Nuthatch Lane: A Grade 1 Pipe Locator Activity

A 40-minute grade 1 careers activity where students find hidden yarn pipes under paper, mark them with blue strips, and measure the path in paper clips.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain why a worker marks buried water pipes before anyone digs.
  2. Students will find a hidden line by touch and mark its path with blue strips.
  3. Students will measure the marked path with paper clips laid end to end and write the count.

Vocabulary

Key words: locator, buried, mark, measure

Teacher overview

Before a crew digs a hole in a street, somebody walks that street first and paints marks on the pavement so the digger knows what is buried underneath. Blue marks mean a water line. This activity gives first graders that job: three lengths of yarn are taped to the floor under a sheet of paper standing in for Nuthatch Lane, and small groups find each hidden line by touch, mark it with blue strips, and then measure their marked path in paper clips. Finding the line by touch stands in for the real task, because a locator has to know where a pipe runs without being able to see it.

Activity Directions

  1. Before class, tape three lengths of yarn to the floor in gentle curves, well apart from one another. Cover them with butcher paper or an old bedsheet and tape the edges down. Label the covered area Nuthatch Lane with a sign.
  2. Gather the class at the edge of the paper. Explain the job: a locator works for the water department, carries an instrument that finds metal pipe under the ground, and paints or flags the pipe's path so nobody digs into it. Say that a locator learns this work on the job and that the maps come from another worker who keeps track of every pipe in town.
  3. Hold up the cardboard tube and walk slowly across the paper, sweeping it side to side, until you feel a ridge under your feet or your hand. Stop and lay one blue strip on that spot. Say aloud what you did.
  4. Split the class into three groups, number them 1, 2, and 3, and send each group to one section of the paper. Groups may use hands and feet but may not lift the paper.
  5. Each group finds its hidden line and lays blue strips along it, end to end, until the whole path is marked.
  6. Call time after ten minutes of searching and marking. Lift the paper together so every group can see how close their blue line came to the yarn underneath.
  7. Put the paper back over the yarn. Each group measures its own blue line by laying large paper clips end to end along it with no gaps and no overlaps, then counts the clips and writes the number on the handout.
  8. End the activity once all three groups have recorded a clip count and answered the handout items.
  9. Debrief in a circle with two questions: "What would happen if a digger did not know the pipe was there?" and "Why is it better to mark the pipe than to dig and find out?"
Blue Lines on Nuthatch Lane: A Grade 1 Pipe Locator Activity — Grade 1 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The teacher reads each item aloud.

  1. How many paper clips long was your blue line? Write the number.
  2. Did your blue line sit right on top of the yarn, or did part of it miss? Write on or missed.
  3. Look at the three blue lines in the room. Which one was the longest? Write the group's number.
  4. Name the job of the worker who marks the pipes. Write or dictate one fact about that job. End with one sentence telling why the marks go down before anyone digs.

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. Answer: Answers vary by group. Accept any whole number of clips that matches a re-count of that group's line, and check that the clips were laid end to end without gaps or overlaps.
  2. Answer: Answers vary. Accept on or missed, and ask the group to point to the place where the blue strips and the yarn agree or part.
  3. Answer: Answers vary by room setup. Accept the group number whose clip count is largest, and have the class compare the three recorded counts aloud to confirm it.
  4. Answer: Answers vary. Accept "locator" or "the worker who marks the pipes," one fact such as "blue marks mean a water pipe," and a closing sentence such as "The marks keep the digger from breaking the pipe."

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Shorten one yarn line and place it in a straight run rather than a curve, and assign that section to students who need a quicker success. Pre-count the paper clips into a cup of ten so counting starts from a known bundle.

Extension (above grade level)

Give these students a fourth yarn line laid in a Y shape and ask them to mark both branches, then to compare the two branch lengths in clips and say how many clips longer one branch is than the other.

ELL supports

Pre-teach buried, mark, dig, and measure with a gesture for each that the whole class uses during the activity. Accept a pointed finger for item 2 and a copied number for item 3, and allow item 4 to be a drawing of a marked street with the word blue labeled.

Extensions

Look for real utility marks on the way to a school event. Paint marks and small flags in several colors appear on streets and sidewalks before digging, and the class can pick out the blue ones and say what is buried underneath.