By Jill Grace and Maria Simani
On Behalf of the CA NGSS Collaborative

Imagine a world where assessments surface students’ science understanding in ways that parallel the instructional shifts the California Science Framework calls for. Imagine assessments that support teachers in eliciting, noticing, valuing, and working with students' ideas. Imagine classrooms where students find their experiences valued, and assessments interesting and even fun. 

Twelve years ago, California was one of the first states to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, leading the way to realize an ambitious vision for science teaching and learning where students come to know science in ways that mirror how scientists work to discover knowledge. From classroom teachers to the California Department of Education, all levels of our system have been working to build understanding and create systems and resources to support that effort. 2026 has brought us another advancement.

On January 1, 2026, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), in collaboration with the California Department of Education and the State Board of Education, launched the Authentic Tasks for Learning and Assessment in Science (ATLAS), a free, statewide bank of curriculum-embedded performance tasks aligned to the California Next Generation Science Standards (CA NGSS). The development team included LACOE, Digital Promise, Education First, Velir, and the CA NGSS Collaborative, a joint effort of the California Department of Education, California Science Project, California Association of Science Educators, California County Superintendents, and the K-12 Alliance, WestEd.

ATLAS represents a major step forward in California’s effort to align assessment with high-quality science instruction. Developed under the Performance Tasks Embedded in Learning for Science (PTELS) Grant (Senate Bill 153), the performance task bank fulfills a key component of the CAST Innovations Concept: creating an online, openly accessible repository of classroom performance tasks for grades K–12. The launch of ATLAS marks the completion of the grant’s primary deliverable: over 1,300 free, NGSS-aligned science performance tasks available to educators across the state.
For classroom educators, ATLAS is more than a bank of performance tasks. It is a tool designed to transform how science teaching and assessment work together.

Why Performance Tasks Matter
To enhance teaching practice, ATLAS tasks are intentionally embedded in instruction. Rather than separating assessment from instruction, the performance tasks provide support by integrating meaningful performance opportunities directly into daily classroom work. These tasks are multi-dimensional and align with the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs), and Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) that define three-dimensional learning under the CA NGSS. Through these tasks, teachers gain crucial insight into student thinking and equip them to provide responsive instruction.

To deepen student learning, performance tasks ask students to do science, not just recall information. Students model phenomena, analyze data, argue from evidence, design solutions, and communicate their reasoning about real-world situations that connect with their lives. Students find themselves empowered to demonstrate their learning in authentic ways.

What Educators Will Find in ATLAS
ATLAS currently includes over 1,300 tasks spanning grades K–12 and all science domains. To support the varied needs of California educators, a wide range of tasks can be found and vary in length and format, from short 15-minute classroom experiences to extended investigations lasting multiple class periods.
The platform was developed through a user-centered design process that engaged over 200 educators across all of California’s regions, in focus groups, usability testing, and review panels. Participating educators represented rural, suburban, and urban communities and brought expertise serving multilingual learners, students with limited financial resources, newly arrived students, and gifted students.
Their feedback shaped:

• Task clarity and usability
• Semantic, natural-language search features
• Filtering options by grade, standard, domain, and time
• Preview tools to support classroom readiness and usability 

Teachers can search using everyday language or filter by specific standards, grade bands, or time constraints. Tasks include detailed information about materials, standards alignment, and implementation guidance. Users can copy materials directly to Google Drive, create collections, join collaborative groups, and share feedback with peers.

A Glimpse into Classroom Possibilities
ATLAS tasks reflect the diversity of California classrooms and communities. Some examples include:

• Early Elementary: A first-grade task asks students to explore why beavers build homes and how their body structures support survival. Through storytelling, modeling, and optional writing, students engage in structure-function reasoning in less than 30 minutes.
• Middle School: Students investigate whether ultrasonic sound waves can disrupt harmful algal blooms. Over several class periods, they conduct investigations, build and revise models, and evaluate environmental impacts, connecting the science of waves to community water concerns.
• High School: In a short task on AI data center energy use, students evaluate evidence and engage in debate about trade-offs in energy consumption. This performance task foregrounds argumentation from evidence and critical evaluation involving core scientific practices.

Across grade levels, tasks intentionally connect science content to authentic, real-world contexts. They also foreground durable skills such as communication, collaboration, and critical reasoning.

Teachers have highlighted that ATLAS saves time and strengthens rigor while remaining adaptable to diverse learners. Teachers reported that tasks could be modified to meet the needs of English learners, advanced students, and students requiring additional scaffolding without sacrificing intellectual depth.

Looking Ahead
ATLAS represents a pivotal step toward aligning science instruction and assessment in California. By providing free, high-quality, curriculum-embedded performance tasks, the state is investing in a vision of science learning that is authentic, rigorous, and supports all of California’s students. ATLAS is also working to support a responsive, teacher-centered resource that evolves with classroom needs. To realize this, LACOE and its partners will continue refining and expanding ATLAS, gathering educator feedback through analytics and surveys. Ongoing enhancements will include expanded task collections, improved search features, additional annotated student work samples, and further implementation guidance.

As ATLAS becomes integrated into classrooms across the state, it has the potential to move California towards the CAST Innovations vision of a coherent, equitable assessment system in which classroom-embedded tasks complement summative assessments and mini-performance tasks. In doing so, we can provide educators with powerful resources that equip them to elicit, notice, value, and work with our students’ brilliant ideas.

Author’s note:
For the full vision of ATLAS to become reality, investment is required to expand the professional learning being developed and locally implemented in Los Angeles to scale statewide. CASE is currently proposing that Governor Newsom add additional funding from the 2026-2027 State Budget to allow for coordination by the CA NGSS Collaborative and the CAL-MSCS Science Steering Team to ensure the professional learning reaches all of California’s regions.

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