Performance Tasks

In this assessment, students create different mobiles to investigate how multiple forces act on objects. In the first group product, students begin experimenting with balancing mobiles by placing pieces of paper on a clothes hanger with the goal of understanding what it means for a mobile to be...

In this assessment, students learn that a hurricane hit Atlantic City, New Jersey in 2012, destroying their boardwalk. Students use their understanding of hurricanes to help decide whether they should rebuild their boardwalk with different precautions or not rebuild before. After reading a text...

In this assessment, students learn about a 16-acre salt marsh on the coast of San Diego that is in high demand for both tourism and natural resources. In the assessment, students are asked to decide how they think this land should be used: should it be completely developed, protected, expanded,...

In this assessment, students learn that Death Valley, a national park in California, is one of the hottest, driest places in the world. And yet, just on the other side of the mountain, there is tons of rain and snow. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as a rainshadow. To help students explain...

In this assessment, students are introduced to two competing claims about how thermal energy transfers when ice cubes are mixed with hot soup to cool down the soup. After drawing particle models and analyzing data about the ice and soup temperatures, students are asked to select which claim they...

In this assessment, students learn that more students are likely to ride their bike/scooter/skateboard in the future to reduce their carbon footprint, which is likely to increase the amount of impact collisions. After using Newton’s Third Law to model and describe the impact to the head during a...