Please note that many tasks were constructed prior to Common Core and the task alignments to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were not identified in the task materials. To search for the performance tasks explicitly aligned to the CCSS, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), or College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, please go to CCSS, NGSS, and C3 tabs.
| Source | Task |
|---|---|
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Heat Retention This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on the knowledge of Heat Transfer. Students must test, measure, and graph their findings to determine which of four substances would be the best as a heat mass. This task includes: |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Heating Crystals In this task, students will experiment with and observe the effects of heating various crystals. This task includes: |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Hot Under the Collar In this task, students must convert temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit. This task includes: |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Ice Cream In this task, students must calculate the quantity of ice cream to buy as well as the expected profit. This task includes: |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Ice Melting This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on the knowledge of the Transfer of Energy. Students must design a way to investigate whether various materials can prevent heat gain in frozen water. This task includes: |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Identifying Elements In this task, students will use diffraction glasses to observe differences in light. This task includes: |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Immigration This task assesses students’ ability to contextualize two historical documents and place them in the correct chronological order. Drawing on students' knowledge about the American immigration boom of the 1800's, students are asked to place two related documents in order--and explain their reasoning, in effect taking their thinking beyond the rote recall of event dates, names and facts. Sources include Document A--part of an editorial from a San Francisco newspaper published in 1916, and Document B--an excerpt from a book titled A Tour in the United States by Archibald Prentice-published in 1848. Students who correctly contextualize the documents will see that Letter B, describing a rather simple immigration process for large numbers of German immigrants, was likely written before Letter A, which calls for legislation similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act in an attempt to exclude Japanese immigrants. |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
In Bartering for Bananas In Bartering for Bananas, students are asked to find how many bananas Byron can get with his five fish. This task includes:
|
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Inca Fortification This task requires students to weigh the values and limitations of a document as historical evidence, as it relates to resistance against Spanish rule by the Inca. Students well-versed in sourcing a document will be able to explain that a photograph of a native Inca fort is useful in that it provides some evidence of Inca fortification against Spanish attacks. However, for Question 2, Students will also observe that the photograph was taken centuries after the Spanish conquest of Tawantinsuyu-and explain how that fact limits the its usefulness as evidence of how the Inca resisted Spanish forces. Resources include PDF downloads of the assessment with source materials, and a rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
|
Source Subject Grade Level |
Incline Planes In this task, students will explore the relationship between angles and the force necessary to move an object up an incline. This task includes: |
If you would like to recommend additional open-sourced performance task banks to be included in the database, or if you would like to report a broken link, please email Pai-rou Chen.
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305