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Forensics Science Classroom Activities
These classroom activities on forensics science from the University of Colorado at Boulder were designed to help students understand the process of scientific investigation and develop better laboratory and data-collection techniques. Teachers can use or adapt any or all of the three crime scene scenarios on the website, which contains the instructions needed to conduct the activities. The cases involve the theft of an autographed sports jersey, the mysterious death of a prominent doctor, and the unauthorized downloading of high security computer files. They call for students to gather and document certain kinds of evidence, to complete three analyses (lipstick, blood, and hair), and to compare their results to the evidence collected at the scene. The Teacher’s Guide describes the materials educators need to turn a classroom (or another area of the school) into a “crime scene” and suggests ways to demonstrate techniques of collecting and preserving evidence. Student handouts, which contain the scenarios and descriptions of possible suspects, provide the link between the investigation of the crime scene and the lab work. Additional handouts, for teachers and students, explain how to analyze the chemical composition of lipstick and lip prints, how to analyze human and animal hair with a light microscope, and how to determine whether a stain is blood through a simple catalase test and the phenolthalein assay used by real crime investigators. A guide to presenting evidence from a crime scene investigation in a courtroom format is also on the site. Other classroom activities created by the university’s Biological Sciences Initiative, an outreach program for K-12 teachers, are also available online.
Hair Analysis Student Handout
This handout contains instructions for analyzing human and animal hair evidence from a "crime scene."
Media: PDFProgram Director: Leslie Leinwand, Ph.D.
Award Years: 1989, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006
Summary: The University of Colorado at Boulder is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Its HHMI-funded initiatives include:
- Two programs—an entry-level Bioscience Undergraduate Research Skills and Training Program and an advanced-level Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program—that provide undergraduates with financial support to participate in substantive, increasingly sophisticated, and sustained biomedical research experiences;
- The Biological Sciences Initiative (BSI), which bring hands-on science education to thousands of Colorado K-12 teachers and their students. BSI programs include:
- The Science Squad—a program that reaches about 12,000 K-12 students in Colorado annually—which consists of a team of CU-Boulder graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who visit schools individually to engage students in hands-on science activities.
- Professional development courses, involving some 300 K-12 teachers annually, which update teachers on scientific advances and offer related hands-on activities.
- The Genomics Teaching Place, a project launched in 2004, which allows students and faculty to study the structure and function of genes using recent advances in biology and computational science; and
- The Collaborative Learning Classroom and a summer institute to help teams of faculty incorporate innovative teaching strategies into science education.