OkatieElementary School

ST1.5: Students demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments and express their conclusions through elaborated explanations of their thinking.

Performance based assessments and tasks are used regularly to showcase opportunities in which students clarify, elaborate, and defend their thinking and learning. An example of a performance based task in second grade is to create step-by-step forces and motion experiments in which they ask a question, generate a hypothesis, plan the experiment, follow the plan to test their hypothesis, record results, and draw conclusions based on what they learned. In fifth grade, students explored the laws of physics as they worked collaboratively to create a marble roller coaster. During this time, students explored concepts of friction, balanced and unbalanced forces, and inertia. Engineering skills were strengthened when designs were tested and retested throughout the unit.

Fifth Grade students explored the laws of physics as they worked collaboratively to create a marble rollercoaster. During this time, students explored concepts of friction, balanced and unbalanced forces, and inertia. Engineering skills were strengthened when designs were tested and retested throughout the unit.	Students planned and built ramps using only materials they could find in the classroom. They designed two different types of ramps and tested then to determine which would allow a car to travel the farthest. During this experiment, students discussed forces like friction and inertia.	Fourth grade students investigated electricity and circuits. Following this unit, they examined an example of a circuit and utilized the knowledge they gained to explain why or why not the light bulb would light.
Students demonstrated their understanding about the properties of polygons by constructing different types of polygons—triangles, quadrangles, pentagons, and hexagons—using common, everyday straws.