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.
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Cold War Foreign Policy This task assesses students’ ability to contextualize two historical documents, sequencing them in the correct chronological order. Document A is an excerpt from the joint resolution by the Allies at the Moscow Conference in 1943. Document B is from an article published in the Chicago Daily News on February 14, 1951. This task draws on students' knowledge about American foreign policy but in a way that goes beyond the simple recall of facts and dates. Students must show that they have a broad understanding of how American foreign policy changed over time, and demonstrate the ability to use knowledge about the past place the two documents in context. Students who correctly contextualize the documents will see that Document A, which describes an alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China against Germany, was a product of World War II foreign policy and therefore likely written before Document B, which refers to American Cold War containment policy in Korea. Resources available with this task include PDF documents of the assessment itself (with sources), as well as a rubric. |
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Computers: The Root of All Evil or The Essence of Our Being? In this task, students will become the assistant manager of a Walmart and use an Excel spreadsheet to calculate customer's bills while the registers are broken. This task includes: |
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Connections to the Philippine-American War This task assesses students' historical knowledge in a way that transcends the rote recall of facts by asking students to draw on their knowledge of the past to construct an argument about how two events are connected. Question 1 asks students to connect the explosion of the USS Maine to the imprisonment of Filipinos by the American military in 1901. Question 2 asks students how the popularity of Social Darwinism in the US is likewise connected to the imprisonment of Filipinos in 1901. The task includes a range of supplementary materials, all accessible and available for download with the creation of a free account through the site:
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Cooking Up a Mystery In Cooking Up a Mystery students will use evidence from the lab and the Internet to identify a criminal suspect in a cooking contest and make safety improvements. This task includes:
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Counting Trees In this task, students must develop and explain a method for counting the amount of trees in a diagram. This task includes: |
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Creating Columbus Day This task assesses students' ability to evaluate the relevance of contextual information for determining the motivations of an author. Students must select one fact, and explain how it sheds light on why President Harrison declared Columbus Day a national holiday in 1892. Students with a strong understanding of contextualization will be able to explain how the fact that Catholic voters comprised an important voting block in the pending election might have affected Harrison's decision to honor an Italian Catholic explorer. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Creeping This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on the Structure of the Earth Systems. Students must understand a model depicting "soil creep" in order to measure and graph their calculations. This task includes: |
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Critter Museum In this task, students will act as museum directors and sort, classify, and provide information of the animals to be displayed. This task includes: |
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Crustal Sinking This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on the knowledge of the Stucture of the Eath System. Students must examine the relationship between Earth's Crust and the mantle by conducting an experiment in which they measure the rate at which a test tube sinks into "goo". This task includes: |
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Custom Coasters In this task, students will work in groups to create a design portfolio to pitch to a client and design firm. This task includes: |
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