Criminal / Forensic Psychology Lesson & Activity / Game

I designed this Forensic / Criminal Psychology lesson for my middle-school CTE class. The first career field that we dug into as a class was Psychology, and many of the students expressed intrigue at the idea of being forensic psychologists, I thought I'd give them hands-on practice in it!

They got really into it this lesson. I'd been struggling with engagement, but every class period embraced the game's call for physical activity and critical thinking. They also appreciated the fact that this game played into their different strengths and allowed them to do the cerebral heavy lifting.

Our class periods are 75 minutes long, and it took my most focused class about 60 minutes to finish each "part" of the lesson (this lesson takes two days / class periods to complete).

It's a fun, hands-on way to teach the concept of predicting human behavior through psychological knowledge and observation. It also edges into criminal justice and forensics, which makes it applicable for teachers interested in those subjects as well.

Materials include:

-A Power Point presentation about criminal psych basics (7 slides)

-Instructions for the group Whodunnit game (1 page)

-Serial Killer note sheets (4 pages)

-Serial Killer Profile sheets (6 pages)

-Victim Profile sheets (2 pages)

*In order to keep this lesson kid- and academic-friendly, I avoided any extremely vivid or gory details. I also explained to the students that this lesson was not intended to glorify murder or murderers (as the "true crime" genre often does), but rather to prepare the kids to be observant of people around them and recognize the warning signs of someone dangerous. If you have any concern that one of your students may be too sensitive for this subject, best to avoid it. (However, I have some very sensitive students, and none of them had an issue.)