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Eyewitness Testimony (Engaging Lesson and Activity on Memory)

Psychology lesson on memory in which students act as eyewitnesses to a staged laptop theft, then learn from research why eyewitness accounts are so often wrong.
Grades
Grades 7–12, Middle School, High School
Pages
30
File type
Zip

Updated Oct 26, 2026

Subject
Social Studies, History, Psychology
Topic
eyewitness, memory
Resource types
Lesson Plans, Teacher Tools

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Engaging Eyewitness Testimony Lesson on Memory\nThis 30-page product is designed to facilitate student learning about human memory and why it can be unreliable. Students take on the role of a witness to a stolen laptop and describe what they saw. In the process, they realize how fallible memory can be and why eyewitness accounts should not be fully trusted. The materials cover the basics of memory, including the three types of memory (sensory, short-term, long-term). An engaging activity puts students in the shoes of an eyewitness. Reflection questions, statistics, summarized research, videos, and visual slides are also included. Educators can use this versatile product for whole-class instruction or small groups to teach key psychology concepts related to memory in an engaging way.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

  • Describe the three types of memory and the encoding-storage-retrieval process
  • Explain how schemas and suggestion can distort eyewitness memory
  • Evaluate the accuracy of their own eyewitness account

Teaching tips

  • Test the staged-crime video in the slides before class, since the eyewitness activity depends on it

Skills covered

  • Recall under questioning — describing the suspect's clothing, height, age and weapon from memory
  • Data comparison — checking answers against the real answers and class statistics
  • Reflection — writing about how well they performed as a witness

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Resource details

Concepts & topics

Core concepts

  • Sensory memory
  • Short-term memory
  • Long-term memory
  • Eyewitness testimony
  • Memory distortion

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