Early semester foundational assignment for any course where a solid understanding of causal inference is critical.
Tips for introducing the assignment in class:
I like to explain to students that the human brain is a pattern-finding MACHINE. People are prone to see patterns, and generate on-the-fly explanations for those patterns. This exercise trains students to challenge whether (real-world) correlations might be spurious.
This assignment consists of a series of short online activities:
Students learn about how Google search data for terms related to influenza symptoms ended up correlating with actual CDC data mapping the spread of the virus.
Students get to play with relevant data on the Google Correlate tool, then branch out to map out other correlations.
Students are challenged to generate alternate explanations for observed correlations.