Working in groups of three or four, make a list of all the diseases that you know.
Write the diseases on slips of paper.

Now divide your diseases into groups according to what causes them.

• Infection: those you can catch from other people.
• Inheritance: disease that we inherit from our parents.
• Diet: diseases caused by what we eat.
• Lifestyle: disease caused by jobs, stress, or lack of exercise.
• Drugs: diseases caused by smoking and other recreational drugs.
• Don’t know.

Organise your slips of paper into groups and stick them onto a poster. Compare them with the work of another group of students.

Check any ‘Don’t knows’ or diseases that you couldn’t agree about with your teacher or reference material.

1. Which groups had most diseases?
2. Did any disease fit into more than one group?