Chemical Aspects of Forensic Science Honors Seminar
January-April, 2015
Spring semester of my freshman year, I completed the Chemical Aspects of Forensic Science Honors Seminar. Originally, I took this class to satisfy my BOK Natural Science requirement, and it seemed like the most interesting one on this list. Never did I expect to meet such awesome people and have so much fun in the classroom. The class itself was one of my favorites of my freshman year and allowed us to delve into the real science behind a typical CSI episode. We learned what to look for and how to assess a crime scene, which included everything from identifying car paint and ink to analyzing blood splatter and arson patterns. Throughout the semester, we had two guest speakers including the director of the crime lab of Hamilton County and a forensic chemical specialist from the FDA. Both speakers are highly skilled and respected in their professions, and listening to them was a great learning experience, and it was exciting when we actually recognized and understood the fancy lab machines they referenced. Finally, at the end of the semester, we put our knowledge to work in the investigation of a mock crime scene. Over several classes, we read over, questioned, and analyzed a crime scene before developing theories and writing a formal analysis. This class was the perfect balance of learning (and exposing television myths) and fun group work that allowed us to express our creativity and apply critical thinking skills.
Student Crime Scene Presentations
Toward the end of the semester, we worked in groups and developed our own crime scenes. We had complete freedom and were allowed to be as creative as we wanted with the only stipulation being to apply all that we had learned to create an at least semi-realistic and solvable crime scene. Each group presented their crime scene in class, and the other groups had to perform an "investigation" to figure out "who done it" and solve the crime scene. Below is a link to my group's crime scene presentation.
crime_scene.pptx | |
File Size: | 3599 kb |
File Type: | pptx |