Modeling Prompt

Ask students to think about relationships between events that they have noticed, for example, using a smartphone before bed and not being able to sleep. Is this a causal connection or just a coincidence?

Invite students to share their examples and record them for all to see. Choose one and ask students how they would do an experiment to find out if there might be a causal relationship. During the discussion, remind them of what is involved in doing an experiment: they need to be able to assign subjects to groups, use different treatments on each group, and measure the outcomes. In this task they will choose a relationship they can study and actually do an experiment to gather data.