You will be acting as a community health department investigator who has been hired to look into a mysterious pattern of student absences at some local middle schools in your area. Start here by reading a memo from your boss by clicking on the Memo icon below. This memo outlines the basics of the problem for you.

Luckily, your team has already collected all the school absences data and has put it on your Health Department intranet site which includes things such as the school event calendar, and interviews with the students' parents, among others.

Your first task for this project is to figure out where the unusual spike in absences is taking place, and in what classes. Remember to base all your conclusions on evidence from the data. You can access several charts that display all the student absences at four schools by clicking the charts icon below. If you are having difficulty choosing which graphs to display, try viewing four graphs at once to make comparisons between schools. All the information you need is on that chart.

Based on this data, provide the following:

1. Is there is a common reason for the absences? Explain.

2. Come up with two testable, clear hypotheses about what you think is behind the absences. Be sure to base your hypotheses on the evidence you have obtained (e.g., Health Department Restaurant Inspections) and be thorough in your explanation of who, what, why, when, and how to support your hypotheses.

3. Come up with six testable questions that you could ask to help further your investigation and support or disprove your hypotheses.

4. Is the following statement a suitable hypothesis: "The Brentwood Indians basketball team lost the state championship because there is bad stuff in the stars happening with Mars in Aquarius"? Explain why or why not.