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ScienceScientific InquiryAges 8–10

Correlation vs Causation

Two things happening together doesn't mean one caused the other — recognise the difference between correlation and causation before drawing conclusions

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Correlation means two quantities vary together. Causation means a change helps produce another change. A shared cause can make two quantities rise together. A pattern alone cannot choose between these explanations. Safety: Paper analysis only; no personal records, dietary changes or water activity. Stop: End after one additional-data proposal. Do not survey children or run food, health or swimming experiments.

Materials: Paper and pencil; Two colouring pencils 1. Copy this illustrative, invented table: Day | Weather | Ice creams sold | People swimming. A | cool | 10 | 5. B | mild | 20 | 15. C | warm | 40 | 35. D | hot | 60 | 55. These are not real sales or swimming records. 2. Use two colours to mark how ice-cream sales and swimmer counts change across the rows. Write the pattern in words; you do not need a correlation coefficient. 3. Consider the claim Buying ice cream causes people to swim. Draw that proposed arrow. Then draw another explanation: warmer weather → more ice-cream buying; warmer weather → more swimming. Explain why the table fits both rising quantities without proving the first arrow. 4. Write one additional record that could help, such as comparing days with similar weather but different sales. Say why recording only more hot days would not remove the shared-weather explanation. 5. Finish two sentences: The table shows __. The table does not show __. Explain why deliberately changing children’s swimming or food intake is not an appropriate family test of this claim. Done: The learner describes the pattern, offers a shared-cause alternative and limits the causal claim. Proof: Keep the table, arrows and two conclusion sentences. Note supplied-explanation or adult reading support. Stop: End after one additional-data proposal. Do not survey children or run food, health or swimming experiments.

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US EPA · Practice link — not the full lesson

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Students supports Correlation vs Causation. An adult previews and guides; this is a learning page, not a scored quiz.

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Public US EPA page. An anonymous GET on 2026-11-12 returned HTTP 200 with no login or payment prompt for this URL. Opening the link does not save practice or assess mastery. An adult should preview and guide the learner.

US EPA. “Students.” External page; Gakuva does not copy, host, embed, or redistribute materials.

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Check understanding

  • developmental changes in children's recognition of evidence relevance to causal explanations
  • causal learning research
“If your child noticed that children who eat breakfast tend to do better at school, would they understand that breakfast might not be the cause — there could be another reason both things are true?”

Curriculum record

Type
Meta
Subject
Science
Domain
Scientific Inquiry
Age range
Ages 8–10