Los fenómenos y sus causas. Una oportunidad para aprender a hacer ciencia y ejercitar la imaginación.

The beginning of a scientific research can be a question aimed at discovering the cause of a particular phenomenon, i.e., explaining the reason of it. These are often the toughest questions to answer, frequently leading to cases of correlation being mistaken for causation. This error results in students’ manifold alternative conceptions and foments numerous logical fallacies that often appear in the media. The analysis of cause-effect situations can be an effective tool in order to test these multiple conceptions, foster critical thinking in students, publicize a facet of scientific work, and at the same time, encourage the use of imagination. With this purpose in mind, this paper presents a series of activities to analyse cause-effect situations and proposes an everyday experience to work on control variables.El inicio de una investigación científica puede ser una pregunta enfocada a conocer la causa o causas de un fenómeno, es decir, a explicar el porqué de dicho fenómeno. Estas preguntas suelen ser las más difíciles de responder y es común confundir correlación con causalidad. Este error produce múltiples concepciones alternativas en el alumnado y fomenta numerosas falacias argumentativas que suelen aparecer en los medios de comunicación. El análisis de situaciones causa-efecto puede ser una buena herramienta para poner a prueba las concepciones alternativas, fomentar el sentido crítico del alumnado, dar conocer una faceta del trabajo científico y, a la vez, fomentar el uso de la imaginación. Con esta finalidad, en este artículo, se presenta una serie de actividades para analizar situaciones de causa-efecto y se propone una experiencia cotidiana para trabajar el control de variables.Palabras clave: causa y efecto; correlación; concepciones alternativas; control de variables; falacias argumentativas.The cause of phenomena. An opportunity to learn science and exercise the imaginationThe beginning of a scientific research can be a question aimed at discovering the cause of a particular phenomenon, i.e., explaining the reason of it. These are often the toughest questions to answer, frequently leading to cases of correlation being mistaken for causation. This error results in students’ manifold alternative conceptions and foments numerous logical fallacies that often appear in the media. The analysis of cause-effect situations can be an effective tool in order to test these multiple conceptions, foster critical thinking in students, publicize a facet of scientific work, and at the same time, encourage the use of imagination. With this purpose in mind, this paper presents a series of activities to analyse cause-effect situations and proposes an everyday experience to work on control variables.Keywords: cause and effect; correlation; alternative conceptions; argumentative fallacies; control variables