Lesson Idea: Causal Model

I was introduced to the idea of the causal model through an instructional coach during my first practicum. Though it only takes a simple idea, I found this tool was very effective at getting my students engage with a concept, and making connections with their own experiences and ideas.

Much like other mind-mapping tools, you'll need a guiding question - e.g. “what causes [something] to happen?”





We started off with “what causes a traffic jam?” Though not related to the social studies curriculum, it was something that the students could talk about quite easily. We were soon branching off into some of the big ideas for this topic – bad weather, distracted driving, volume of traffic, issues with the roads, etc. Then came the harder part – now what causes those to happen? It took the students a minute to reconsider how their ideas relate, but soon they firing out ideas that I honestly hadn't expected from grade 5s. We discussed rush hour, how talking on your cellphone or eating while driving is dangerous, and how different natural events can affect road conditions. I had every students' hand up and we filled several sheets of chart paper in our giant web of ideas. We were deep in a discussion on how different living arrangements influence people to commute to work when I realized we hadn't yet gotten to the social studies part of the lesson.

I reluctantly had to end that brainstorm and bring them back to today's goal. Since interrelationships is a Big Idea in the First Nations strand, we discussed "what causes people to get along?" This was a lot more difficult than the first example, but I was astounded by the profundity of the ideas the grade 5s presented. We discussed friendship, why people need friends, and how people depend on each other.

Both the students and I referred to these ideas throughout the unit, and I was surprised at the effect this lesson had on our unit. I'm looking forward to trying this idea out again in other units!