After reflecting on the difference between what we see and what causes it, you will now look more deeply at one local social problem. 

Social problems are often first noticed through visible symptoms, but these symptoms may be connected to several economic, social, cultural, institutional, political, digital, or environmental causes. A Root Cause Map can help you organize these connections visually and explore what lies beneath the surface. 

Instructions 

Choose one local social problem that you have already explored in this course, or another issue that is important in your community. 

Create a simple visual map that includes: 

• The social problem in the centre 
• Its visible symptoms or effects 
• Possible deeper causes 
• Connections between the symptoms and causes 
• One or two causes that you consider especially important 

You may organize the causes into categories such as: 

• Economic 
• Social or cultural 
• Institutional or policy-related 
• Educational 
• Digital or technological 
• Environmental 
• Community or family-related 

You can create your map in Canva, PowerPoint, Word, Google Slides, a mind-mapping tool, or by hand. Upload it to your forum post as an image, PDF, Word document, or PowerPoint slide. 

Along with your map, write 100–150 words answering: 

• What social problem did you analyse? 
• Which root cause do you consider most important, and why? 
• Did anything surprise you while creating the map? 

After posting, explore the maps of other participants and reply to two posts. Each reply should be approximately 50–80 words. You may: 

• Ask a question about one of the connections 
• Mention a similar cause in your community 
• Suggest another possible factor 
• Explain what you learned from the map