TASK

The task of this project is essentially twofold. In the first part, and again in the last part, students will be asked to take the role of detective.

Initially, they will be divided into 10 groups, and assigned an area of forensics to specialize in. The 10 groups are:

o Fingerprints
o Fabrics & Fibers
o Hair & DNA
o Handwriting chromatography
o Handwriting Forgery
o Blood Typing
o Footprints & Tire Prints
o Weapons & Ballistics
o Map & Point of Entry
o Collecting & Handling of Evidence

They will use the internet links provided, as well as any other references they have access to, in order to become knowledgeable in their assigned or chosen area.

While researching, they are to create a document in Microsoft word, outlining the important things to know about their area of specialization. They will use this document as a handout to provide to the other detectives, when they conduct their in-service to train the other detectives in their field of expertise.

Once the research has been conducted and the handouts created, the students will teach the class about their area of research. They will give the students a handout and speak to them about what they have learned.

Now, the students are going to take the role of author, producer and actor. They are going to stage a crime scene, to take place in their school. They will write a story explaining the crime, detailing as much information as they can about the crime. It is important that the crime be reasonable to solve, without being obvious. All stories will be turned in to their teacher and the best parts of each story will be compiled to create the script for the class crime scene.

Next, they will proceed to the location of the crime (must be within the school). There they will stage the crime scene. They will set the victim there, use props for forensic evidence and photograph the scene. They will take panoramic photos of the scene as well as close-up photos of each piece of evidence.

The last stage of their work to create their crime is for each student to return to his or her initial group. They will then take the information, story and photos from their created crime scene and add this information to the bottom of the handout they created for the class. For example, the group who specialized in blood will take the photos of the blood from the crime scene and add them to the bottom of their handout explaining the significance of the blood found at their crime scene.

Finally, they will post their crime scene to the internet for others to solve, and will again resume the role of detective as they attempt to solve the crime scenes posted by their partner school.