K-12 performance tasks in 

Students will use the Engineering Design Process to build a solution to prevent/slow coastal erosion. There will be a research portion where students will investigate the piping plovers who are endangered and have nesting grounds on our local beach (Revere). Next, they will learn more about erosion and erosion prevention that already exists. Using this knowledge, they will use the steps in the Engineering Design Process to create a model of a coastal erosion prevention solution. They will present their models to their classmates to receive feedback and use that feedback to improve their models. Finally, they will test their models and use these results to determine the effectiveness of their designs and the designs of their classmates. Students will create a presentation at the conclusion of testing to share with their classmates and, if possible, a representative from the Department of Conservation & Recreation.

Students will investigate how to change the rate of chemical reaction of two substances. Students will detail methods for how they will conduct the experiment, what materials they will use, and what variable will be changed. Students will record results and then analyze, explaining what happened and why.

The United States Postal Service is creating a new stamp series called "The Most Influential People of the 21st Century" and is accepting nominations and stamp designs. Write an essay to argue for an influential person of your choice, and design a stamp to honor them.

You are a historian studying how bias can be introduced into historical accounts. Your task is to study articles about Alexander the Great and analyze how the authors use different evidence or interpretations of facts to support their claims about this historical figure.

Fermi problems are problems that exist in many different real world scenarios. You are not able to answer these problems in one step, so you have to break the problem down into more manageable questions. These questions can require research, calculation, or estimation to answer. Your task is to write and answer a Fermi Problem that interests you. What real-world role would you be taking on? What question will you tackle related to that role?

Students will write a personal statement that shares something about who they are and what they believe in. It should state clearly a principle, moral, or value that is a driving force in their life, why it is important to them, and what life experiences led them to that principle, moral, or belief. This task is adapted from an assessment from Facing History.

After reading All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely as a class and seeing examples of protest art in the book (die-in protest, graffiti, social media posts), students will engage in exploration of various different types of protest art that exist in the real world. Students will individually explore two different songs, two different pieces of visual art, and two different poems. They will then create their own piece of art in response to one of the examples and create an artist's statement to explain their creation.

Students will write an evidence-based persuasive essay in the style of the New York Times opinion page. Students will apply their understanding of rhetorical appeals and argumentative writing with this piece.

You are a 7th grade student who completed Unit 2 in the 7th grade Illustrative Math (IM) program, and you would like to suggest a more interesting proportional relationship example for the unit. You have decided to contact Imagine Learning, the company that publishes the IM program, to ask them to include a situation that you find more interesting in the new update of the program. Identify the proportional relationship you would like to see in the program, and explain why it is interesting to you. Also, represent it in a real-world context, a table, a graph, and an equation as it is done in the IM unit.

Students will move into the role of a zoo architect and work on a team with 2 to 3 other architects to create a zoo that will pass guidelines for animal enclosures. Each animal has specific area and perimeter guidelines based on its size and what it needs in order to survive. Students design 2-3 enclosures individually, but then come back together with their group and may need to change the enclosure sizes in order to fit everything together following the zoo requirements. Finally, again individually, students write or record a video explaining their group's zoo design and any changes that they had to make to each individual animal enclosure.