Overview: To show examples of cause and effect and encourage students to recognize the process around them.
Resources: Teacher: one hardboiled egg; one raw egg; one bowl. Student: pencil, paper.
Teacher Preparation: boil one egg before class and mark it.
Procedure:
1. Hold up raw egg and say “CAUSE” as you crack the egg on the side of the bowl.
2. Say “EFFECT” as you break open the egg into the bowl.
3. Hold up the hardboiled egg and say “CAUSE” as you go through exaggerated motions of tossing the egg to a student.
4. As they either catch it or drop it, say “EFFECT”.
5. If student catches the egg, retrieve it, then go through the cause-and-effect procedure again, but this time, just hold it up and drop it on the floor.
6. Have students locate all the possible causes-and-effects that have taken place (e.g. boiling the egg makes it hardboiled.)
7. Have students write down real-world examples of cause-and-effect.
Variations/Options: Look for examples in different subject areas: driving on slick streets and slamming on the brakes, not getting a term paper done on time, taking your parents’ car without permission, adding two whole numbers together, staying up until 3 a.m. watching movies the night before school, being late to a job repeatedly, leaving clothes next to a room heater or hot water heater, seeking retaliation against an enemy during war. Also, have them give examples from their own lives.
(Note: putting an egg on a flat tabletop and spinning it is a way to tell if an egg is raw or hardboiled. A hardboiled egg spins freely as you would expect, but a raw egg slows down quickly and behaves sluggishly, due to the motion of the liquid inside.)