# **Science Task Prescreen**

**Task Title:** Offshore Wind Energy Optimization Task
**Grade:** High School
**Date:** 2024-05-24
**SEP:** Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
**DCI:** ETS1.B, PS3.A, PS3.B
**CCC:** Connections to Engineering, Energy and Matter

**Task Purpose:** To evaluate a student's ability to evaluate competing design solutions for a complex real-world energy conversion problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs.

### **Instructions**

* **Before you begin:** Complete the task as a student would. Then, consider any support materials provided to teachers or students, such as contextual information about the task and answer keys/rubrics.
* **Prescreen:** Answer the following high-level questions to identify any major red flags (🚩) in your task. If you find one or more red flags, consider the purpose of the task and the evidence gathered to determine whether the task warrants a deeper dive.

### **Prescreen Questionnaire**

| Question | Yes | No |
| :---- | :---- | :---- |
| 1. Is there a phenomenon or problem driving the task? | [X] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 2. Can the majority of the task be answered without using information provided by the task scenario? | [ ] 🚩 | [X] |
| 3. Can significant portions of the task be answered successfully by using rote knowledge (e.g., definitions, prescriptive or memorized procedure)? | [ ] 🚩 | [X] |
| 4. Does the majority of the task require students to use reasoning to successfully complete the task? | [X] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 5. Does the task require students to use some understanding of disciplinary core ideas to successfully complete the task? | [X] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 6. Do students have to use at least one science and engineering practice to successfully complete the task? | [X] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 7. Are the dimensions assessed separately in the majority of the task? | [ ] 🚩 | [X] |
| 8. Is the task coherent and comprehensible from the student perspective? | [X] | [ ] 🚩 |

### **Recommendation**

Based on your assessment needs and the task purpose recorded above, make a recommendation about this task moving forward (choose one):

* [X] Warrants further review.
* [ ] Should not be used.

### **Summary**

**Summarize your evidence and reasoning:**
The task is grounded in a complex, localized engineering problem (New London offshore wind). It requires students to use an interactive simulation to generate data, evaluate trade-offs between energy output and socio-environmental constraints (ETS1.B, PS3.B), and construct evidence-based arguments (SEP) justifying an optimal design. It cannot be answered by rote memorization.