Phishing awareness lesson

A 45-minute lesson that turns five checks into a habit, with real-looking example emails, a sorting exercise and a class result at the end.

Lesson plan45 minAdult education +2CC BY 4.0

What you will learn

Apply five checks to any suspicious message
Choose a safe reaction instead of clicking
Explain why scammers use pressure and secrecy

Running the lesson

45 min

5 min
Ask: who has had a strange message this month? Collect examples without names.
15 min
Work through the six emails of the worksheet in pairs.
10 min
Compare answers. Write the five checks on the board as the class finds them.
10 min
Everyone does the "Phishing or not?" exercise with your class link.
5 min
Look at the class results together: which situation fooled the most people, and why?

Materials

Spot the phishing email, the worksheet with six emails and answers.
Phishing or not?, the exercise. Open it, unfold "Use it with a class", and copy the class link.
Class results to paste the codes your learners hand in.

Talking points

Scammers create pressure so you act before you think. A real organisation gives you time.
Secrecy ("keep this between us") cuts you off from the people who would spot the trick.
Clicking by mistake happens. What matters is what you do next: change the password and tell someone.

Reuse this material

CC BY 4.0

You may copy, adapt and share it, also commercially, as long as you credit ManyPI and link back.

"Phishing awareness lesson" by ManyPI (https://manypi.com/edu/phishing-awareness-lesson), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)