Memory Experiment

As part of our Science Week, last Monday Year 5/6 conducted a memory experiment with phycologist Mrs Lindholm- parent of a child in Foundation Stage. 
The class was split into two groups and were given twenty-five words to learn in two minutes. We then had another two minutes to write down as many as we could remember. 
The two groups were given the same twenty-five words - one set were random and the other set were in categories. The group that had the words organised into categories were able to remember a lot more words than the group that had the words in a random order.  This taught us that our brains like to organise things and that brains like unusual words like pineapple because it was three syllables. 
How can we use this information to help us improve our memory? When researching something e.g France, we should organise the facts into groups like culture, food and geography because that will help us to remember. Also, when fact finding, we should use subheadings to categorise information.   
Thank you Mrs Lindholm – we really enjoyed this session!
By Josey and Jaryd in Year 5/6.