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Forensic Science, Session A, Summer 2006


Shodor > SUCCEED > Workshop Archive > Forensic Science, Session A, Summer 2006



Day 2
After lunch, Linda began teaching the afternoon class of Forensics and she began by telling the students to condense into groups of four to establish the time of death for humans. They used four dead snowmen to analyze the time of death using data and hypothesis, not predictions and guesses. However, students did not like use to scientific means but rather predict when the snowmen died! The students discovered the time of death of their snowmen by finding the initial amount of water in their beakers, finding the weight of liquid minus the plastic cup container, finding weight of the liquid only, finding the weight of the cup after one minute and thus solving the time of death using simple mathematical processes such as division. By the end of Linda's presentation, the students knew how to use the scientific method to problem solve.
For the final parts of the afternoon, Linda and Laura both had one presentation left. Laura presented the Dead Body Composition model that uses many variables such as trauma, humidity, and temperature to demonstrate a change in body weight over time. The Dead Body Composition model can be found in Shodor's website under Curriculum Materials, then Project SUCCEED materials and then under the Forensic session. She also created a scenario using the model to discuss the variables in the model and the decomposition of the human body. Linda's presentation involved a chromatography lab that the students in Forensics really enjoyed. The object of the lab was to see how a solvent like isopropyl alcohol could separate the different colors in markers and pens. By the process of capillary action, the separated particles of color in the markers would travel up the pieces of paper on which they were separated upon. It seemed like chromatography was a fun lab to the forensic students. When Linda's presentation was finished, the students worked on their moodle journals until the day concluded.

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