K-12 performance tasks in 

Students take on the role of an animator working on a team to create an animated claymation short movie. The challenge is to collaborate in groups to create a claymation short movie using stop motion animation techniques. The short movie needs to be unique, include unique characters and have a clear plot with a beginning, middle and end. The challenge involves dealing with clay and art materials to create a set design, clay characters, and props that can be moved to create an animation using stop motion techniques.

After learning about four different societies (Ancient Egypt, Jonas' World, students' own cities/towns, and ideal society), students pick one society and create an advertisement for it. Through their product, students answer the question, "Which society do you like best?" Students have the choice of advertising their society on a billboard, video, skit, interview, website, a rap, or any other way. In the task, students are not only examining and defining the features of a society, but thinking through what version of these features make a society the best it can be. The project also involves a restorative justice circle discussion in which they identify their own values and determine what values an ideal society should uphold.

Students use their knowledge of the U.S. regions to create a brochure showcasing the natural resources, landmarks, geography, states and capitals of one region. As an additional activity, students can use their prior knowledge and experience with basic paper circuits to make the region on the cover of their brochure light up.

Students choose a famous African American Olympian to research and write answers to guiding questions. Students pair up and conduct mock interviews with each other, and then make changes to their answers based on the interview. Students then write a Scholastic article publishing the interview.

Students take on the role of artists who must prepare artwork for exhibition in a "gallery." The artists develop the ability to construct a finished product using slab, coil, and pinch hand building techniques to develop three clay pieces so that the community can see their creative concept in a successful 3D form. In doing so, the artist deals with perspectives and artistic intentions in creating ceramic works of art.

In developing countries, some communities might not have electricity. These communities could benefit from designs to assist in cooking their food. Students take on the role of an engineer to design a solar oven with recycled materials. The solar oven must rise in temperature and cook or melt an item.

A plane has crashed in a thickly wooded section of Yellowstone National Park. Each small group of students is a rescue team. Each team creates a map that shows the shortest feasible distance to the crash site.

After watching a video about items at Dick's Sporting Goods, students work in pairs to discuss and identify their strategy to determine the better deal by solving a percent equation.

Each student produces sketchbook drawings that reflect artistic investigations that reflect the human form. In making these drawings, each student first determines whether to follow or break with traditional ways in which to represent the human form. Then, students draw the human form from life in various directed and timed action poses, gestures, sizes and shapes, and manipulate scale and size to give the illusion of space. The final challenge is to create a resolved drawing that explores an idea using the human form in an expressive composition. The product is self-evaluated by students and displayed to the community.

Students demonstrate their knowledge about scale of the universe, fundamentals of gravity, and the limitations of space travel through writing a science fiction short story with a graphic representation or a graphic novel that incorporates these concepts. The story may either educate readers on current scientific theory or push the limits of current scientific theory to inspire the next wave of space exploration.