Lesson 9

The mathematical purpose of this lesson is for students to further investigate the types of relationships that exist between two variables. Students begin to distinguish between correlation and causation. Previously, students practiced determining if two variables have a correlation, and they also determined what type of correlation the two variables shared (positive, negative, strong, and weak). This lesson prepares students to create scenarios in which two variables are correlated or have a causal relationship in the associated Algebra 1 lesson. Students attend to precision (MP6) when they distinguish between correlation and causation and construct viable arguments (MP3) when they explain their reasoning for types of correlations.