Leave 'em with more questions than answers...

So for the past few years, I've been teaching an Investigations in Forensic Science class in which the students participate in a mock crime scene analysis. Last spring two of the local television stations did stories on Northland Pines and featured the class and this fall I was asked to submit a story to Teaching Today in Wisconsin. Here's the story...

IT’S A PERFECT MATCH…

Ann Perry - Science Teacher

Northland Pines High School

The baying of the dog informed students in the Investigations in Forensic Science (IFS) class that he had found his quarry. A half an hour earlier, a teacher’s assistant had taken a meandering route, like a lost hiker might, through the wooded area behind the high school and finally found a seat hiding behind a downed tree. Students in the class watched as the handling officer introduced the “lost hiker’s” scent to the dog and we all crashed through the woods as the dog put nose to ground to ferret out the location of the assistant.

Over 5 years ago, when attempting to find a way to further engage my students, I thought about conversations with them in which they asked if techniques seen in crime scene shows were accurate. Often we’d investigate together and I was intrigued with how much science we were discussing “off topic” so I decided to make it the focus of an elective class. In IFS, we cover everything from fingerprinting and handwriting analysis to blood spatter and trace evidence. In addition, a major theme for the class is evaluating the CSI Effect, perpetuated by the many television shows dealing with crime scenes, criminals and the legal system. The effect basically states that the public, specifically jurors, may expect a myriad of concrete evidence that wraps a case up neatly without any unresolved questions. Unfortunately this is rarely the situation and my students and I work to unwrap the real science behind the television shows.  

When students first enrolled in IFS, I found myself faced with a few challenges I hadn’t anticipated. For example, in the blood spatter unit we needed something to act as blood so we could fling it around the classroom to analyze patterns from different angles. When none of the recipes for fake blood acted like the real thing, I started making some strange requests. A student in the class informed me that another student’s father, a school board member, was also a butcher and could probably get me fresh animal blood. I can tell you that nothing generates more interest than a school board member delivering a gallon of blood to your classroom… well, maybe the class period where students are flinging it about. The real payoff came when I was asking a group to clean up some spatter that missed the paper target.  They looked at the spatter and proceeded to inform me that it couldn’t possibly be from their group because clearly the direction of the drop’s spines indicated that a neighboring lab group had to have created them.

Like the blood spatter unit, the class is set up immerse students in the topics so a typical unit may find them;

• determining how long a rotten piece of meat has been in the woods by collecting insect evidence and analyzing it in conjunction with local weather conditions,
• participating in an autopsy investigation via distance learning,
• examining skulls and bones with a local expert to determine skeletal differences in age, sex, race and gender
• visiting the local courthouse to hear testimony involving the reliability and accuracy of eyewitness evidence, or
• learning the differences in training between cadaver and tracking dogs and following a tracking dog as it works a location

Sometimes we take a page from current news and discuss cases making headlines and this year we’ll integrate some of our lessons with a new social studies course being offered, Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice, but the highlight for many in the class is the final exam. That’s right - the students look forward to taking the final. When working with our former liaison officer, we received permission from law enforcement to use some details from a local case that occurred in the 90’s and that framework forms the backbone of the lab practical exam. Students divide into investigative teams and each takes on specific roles like lead investigator, fingerprint specialist, crime scene photographer or evidence technician. A mock crime scene is set up and as each student fulfills their specific duties and the team works together, they begin to piece together what they can about the true life crime. During the process, teams experience the potential frustration of the CSI Effect first hand when the lack of hard evidence leaves them with more questions than answers. But then again, isn’t that what science is all about?

Here's a link to the original article (you'll have to scroll to page 13...)