Continue reading after the paragraph for hints.  

While social media use in children and teens is growing rapidly, we should be mindful of its effects on these age groups. For younger children, social media can be a double-edged sword. Although it can provide educational content and a way to stay connected with friends, excessive use can lead to issues such as reduced attention span, sleep disturbances, and exposure to inappropriate content. Younger children are also more susceptible to cyberbullying, which can have severe emotional impacts. Because adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the effects of social media, it is especially important to encourage responsible use. During this developmental stage, teens are highly sensitive to peer approval and social comparison. Excessive social media use can result in anxiety, depression, and body image issues, especially among girls. Encouraging children and teens to limit usage of social media and keeping them away from unsupervised usage are essential to mitigating these effects.

In the paragraph, the author uses several words as clues or signals that the paragraph is examining cause and effect. Here are the transition words that act as signals:

• Effects

• Lead to

• Because

• Result

Can you tell what causation this paragraph is explaining? The clue is in the main idea: the effects of social media use in children and teens.

This time, see if you can understand the idea presented with each transition word. These ideas are called the details. In a cause and effect pattern paragraph, the details are explaining and examining causation.

Urbanization, the process by which rural areas are transformed into urban areas, leads to the development of cities with dense populations and infrastructure. This transformation causes a significant increase in the amount of concrete, asphalt, and buildings, which absorb and retain heat more than natural landscapes like forests and fields. As a result, urban areas tend to be warmer than their rural surroundings, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. This effect can cause higher temperatures in cities, especially during the summer, leading to increased energy consumption for cooling, elevated air pollution levels, and adverse health effects on residents, such as heat stress and respiratory problems. The causation relationship here is clear: the more urbanized an area becomes, the more pronounced the urban heat island effect, illustrating how human activities directly impact local climate conditions.

After you've read the paragraph, complete the practice below.  

Deforestation, the large-scale removal of forests, has a direct impact on climate. Trees play a crucial role in absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. When forests are cut down, not only is this CO2-absorbing capacity reduced, but the carbon stored in trees is also released back into the atmosphere as CO2 when the wood is burned or decomposes. This increase in atmospheric CO2, a greenhouse gas, contributes to the greenhouse effect, which traps heat and leads to a warming of the global climate. Deforestation also disrupts local weather patterns and reduces biodiversity. These changes will further exacerbate this potential climate change. Thus, these changes and potential changes highlight the critical need for forest conservation to mitigate the potentially devastating effects of these changes.