Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 1 – Investigations in Forensic Science (Rising 2nd)
WOW! Day one is already in the books! We had a fantastic first day together as we jumped right into our Cracking the Case- Investigations of Forensics course. The students were eager to see the crime scene and examine our suspect profiles. The students seem very enthusiastic to see how science can solve this mystery.
Today, we took time to get to know each other and set up basic expectations for our classroom space and crime scene. We took our pretest then dove right into the content. Our first area of focus was on DNA-Fingerprinting. As you can imagine, this is not a topic where students had tons of background knowledge, so we started from square one. We discussed how everyone has their very own unique set of fingerprints. We explored the 3 most common fingerprint patterns (arch, loop, and whorl). Then, we took, analyzed, and identified our own fingerprints patterns. The students were very excited to see their own unique print! Next, we analyzed and identified the fingerprints found at the crime scene. We found it was predominantly a left loop with a small whorl. To conclude class, we compared our crime scene prints with the suspect’s fingerprint patterns but the evidence was inconclusive, so more testing must continue tomorrow!
Dinner table discussion…
What are the 3 types of fingerprint patterns? What is the “core” of a fingerprint? Why can something as unique as fingerprints, still leave Forensic DNA Scientist with inconclusive evidence?
-Ms. Mills
Our Crime Scene
Our Suspects
