The second characteristic of a REAL is that learning takes place within an authentic context. An authentic task, activity, or goal provides learning experiences as realistic as possible given the age and maturation level of the students and other environmental constraints, including safety and expense. The most important feature of this definition is to understand that "realistic experience" includes more than the situation; it includes both the context and the tasks that a learner performs (Honebein, Duffy & Fishman, 1993). Those tasks must be realistic in terms of the cognitive, physical, and social requirements. A realistic context includes as much fidelity as possible to what students will encounter outside school in terms of tools, complexity, and interactions with people (Williams & Dodge, 1992).