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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Source Subject Grade Level |
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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Source Subject Grade Level |
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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Source Subject Grade Level |
Density In this task (in PALM and in PALS), students must conduct an experiment to observe how density will affect an object's ability to float in water. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Density and Buoyancy This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on Properties of Specific Substances. Students must experiment to analyze why and predict which objects will sink or float in water. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Density of Minerals This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on Properties and Changes in Matter. Students must measure and determine the mass, volume, and density of two mineral samples. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Dirt Detectives In this task, students will roleplay as archaeologists. They will create a culture bag that they feel best represents them and present it to the class. Afterwards, students will create a box at home with various items in dirt. Back in class, students will "dig" through artifacts and use notes from the presentations to correlate people to artifacts and glean information about each other. They will use this project to gain a better understanding about how archaeologists use artifacts to learn about the past. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Egg Drop In this task, students will explore various physics concepts by creating a device to house an egg that will protect it when dropped from three different heights. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Fishkill This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on The Living Environment. Students must analyze and graph a data table about the relationship between temperature and dissolved oxygen in order to determine the effects of thermal pollution on fish. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Floating Pencil This task (in PALM and in PALS) focuses on the knowledge of Matter and Its Tranformations. Students must record the length of the pencil suspended in both fresh water and salt water that is unsubmerged, and determine if the unmarked sample is salt water or fresh water. Lastly, students will predict the outcome of adding salt to the salt water sample. This task includes: |
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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: |
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.
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