Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE)

The model system of assessments was designed to satisfy multiple goals: 

• to support the vision of teaching and learning with NGSS laid out in the K-12 Science Framework;
• to facilitate the teaching and learning of science at all levels in K-12;
• to address
...

How can we use data to inform solutions to the effects of extreme weather? Teams of students are each tasked with analyzing and interpreting data for one type of weather hazard to find patterns in past weather events. Using these patterns, students will propose an investigable research question...

How can sound help us clean polluted water? In this task, students are introduced to a problem that affects many lakes and ponds they get polluted. A company claims they a new machine called a Sound Scrubber that can break the cells of the algae using just sounds, and one community has asked the...

What do sloths in the Amazon have to do with the growth of the Andes Mountains? In small groups students will use resources provided and what they know about the rock cycle to develop a model that shows interactions across the earth system that cause changes to the geology, climate, and ecology...

How can we regulate (control) our fishing practices to maintain stable tuna populations and to catch enough fish to feed people around the world? Students work with a partner and use a computer simulation to investigate the effect of changing different variables on a tuna population. After...

Overarching Challenge: How can we conserve the amount of water that is used in California? In this assessment, students will participate in a role-play simulation of a City Council meeting for the town of California City. The Council is considering solutions for reducing water use. After...

Overarching Challenge: Can you make sure that the ecosystem in Biosphere 3 has what it needs to keep people alive? In this assessment, students are introduced to the plans that a group of researchers have created for an ecosystem to go in a new Biosphere, which is being designed to be able to...

How have animals made our lives easier? Think about how humans have solved some of our problems by using ideas from animals - like how they use their body parts to survive and grow. That is what we will be investigating in this unit.

This Instructionally-Embedded Assessment was designed...

In this task, students find evidence for ways that plants and animals have changed the environment around their school. In groups, students begin exploring ways that the environment can be changed and practice documenting types of evidence of changes and why those changes were made by...

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE):

MS-PS4-1. Use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves that includes how the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy in a wave.

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE):

MS-LS2-1: Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE). 

MS-­‐ESS2-­‐1. Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE). 

MS-ESS3-2 Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE):

5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the earth's resources and environment.

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE):

5-LS2-1 Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectation (PE):

3-LS4-4. Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change.*
3-5-ETS1-...

This Short Performance Assessment was designed to evaluate the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs): 

3-PS2-3 Ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.

3-PS2-4. Define...

Once a 3D performance assessment has been designed, we need to evaluate the assessment to ensure that it meets our goals for quality. SNAP analyzes multiple facets of the assessment, including the degree to which students provide evidence of the dimensions we set out to measure, coherence of the...

Once a 3D performance assessment has been designed, we need to evaluate the assessment to ensure that it meets our goals for quality. SNAP analyzes multiple facets of the assessment, including the degree to which students provide evidence of the dimensions we set out to measure, coherence of the...

SNAP Design Criteria for Science Performance Assessment.