MSPAP Through the Eyes of 3rd Grade Student

How might a Maryland School Performance assessment item--or task--be described by a student taking the MSPAP? Here is how the steps in a task on "Planning a Zoo" might be viewed by a 3rd grader.

1. The teacher gives us floor plans.

My teacher says we're going to imagine that some people planning a new zoo in our town have asked our class to help. In our activity papers, there are pictures of three floor plans for three different animals in our zoo - a giraffe, a polar bear, and an elephant. The key says that each little square on the plan is equal to one square foot of real space. Next, we have to build a fence around each cage and figure out how much it will cost. Fencing costs $8.00 per foot, so we have to count each side of a square going around the cage. Once we find this number, it's easy to multiply it by 8 on our calculators to find out how much putting a fence around each cage will cost.

2. More measuring and multiplying.

Now we have to put some flooring in the cages to make the animals more comfortable. Each square foot of flooring costs $4.00. We have to figure out how much the flooring for each cage will cost. The easy way is just to count the squares. Then we multiply that number by 4 to find out how much it will cost to put a floor in each cage.

3. Each animal has special needs.

The giraffe needs a square feed box measuring 4 square feet, and it has to be placed in the cage so the animal can get around it on all sides. I draw a box around four squares in the cage. Since the box isn't touching any walls, the giraffe will be able to move around it on all sides. The polar bear needs a swimming pool with a perimeter of twelve feet, and the pool should be in a corner of the cage. I draw a figure against one of the corners of the cage, making sure that the perimeter equals 12. The elephant needs two trees. The elephant is easy to please. I just draw two boxes that have the same size and shape.

4. Creating a tile pattern.

Our zoo will have an information office, and since we want everything to look nice, we have to make up a repeating pattern for the tiles on the floor of the office. I remember the pattern of our tiles in the kitchen at home. They look like a checker board. So I color in every other box in the rows of squares until it looks like our kitchen at home. I write a sentence about how I came up with the pattern. Then we're finished. Everybody had a lot of fun planning our zoo. It doesn't seem so hard now to plan something like a zoo, or maybe something else, like a bridge or a building. I bet that's not as hard as it looks either.