Forensics

• Forensic Science is an innovative and unique course for students to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. Anyone who watches TV, goes to the movies, or reads newspapers or books is familiar with forensic science. The rise in popularity of forensic science presents a unique opportunity to increase interest in science as a worthwhile career while, at the same time, providing an avenue for students to gain valuable experience in solving problems and thinking critically about their world. This course is “hands-on minds-on”, including thought provoking cases and scenarios. In addition to the extensive labs there is an on-going online component. This is a real time crime scene that has new weekly evidence, interviews, and crime scene information for the student to keep a running log, working with their team of investigators, to solve the case. Some of the components we have covered in the class are fingerprints, entomology, hair, fibers, toxicology, and other areas related to solving crimes.

• Problem solving• Team work • Analytical skills • Career insight• Hands-on lab work• Following specific directions and procedures

• We have focused most of our time on fingerprints and blood, although we have covered many things, including types of evidence, crime scenes, hair, fibers, and their importance.

• Sgt. White, Detective Kerr, and Sgt. Cavanaugh have come in to take the students fingerprints, show how to lift latent prints, and discuss the importance and technologies surrounding fingerprinting today.

• We also studied historic cases, infamous criminals, careers, and books on forensics. We each had our own subject from each respective category which we made posters for and presented to the class to teach them about what we had learned to broaden our forensic knowledge.

• We have many projects lined up for the second semester. We will study drugs and their effects, how to trace poisons, trace evidence, entomology (bugs), and more specific DNA analysis.

• We took a trip to the Munson Blood lab to continue our studies on blood typing and the composition of blood.

• Money lab- we examined different bills to find minute details.

• Fingerprint identification- we used prints lifted from table surfaces (planted by the students) and compared them to known prints to identify them.

• Hair identification- we used microscopes to identify different animal and human hairs and each ones unique characteristics.

• Fiber analysis lab- we identified different fabrics and their characteristics using chemical, flame, and water tests.

• Blood typing lab- we used artificial blood serums and anti-serums to determine blood types and learned which bloods can mix with others.

• Many more to come!

• This website gives us opportunities to investigate crimes as real detectives would with evidence being submitted twice a week. There are four different categories of information given: evidence, interviews, news, and biographies. Using our prior knowledge of crimes, we can analyze the information to solve the crime. We have studied the current case, as well as all the archived cases.

• Since this is the first year of forensics at Suttons Bay, our class has been instrumental in shaping the activities and projects. We are passionate and interested in the subject, making it very fun and intrusting. With Mr. Capron’s experience and flexible teaching style, we have been allowed to mold this into a great class, both fun and instructive. This is a great class that Suttons Bay High School is offering and we highly suggest new and current students to take it.