Project Summary
For this project, we focused on the field of forensics and the science behind crime scene investigation. We were paired up and assigned one of three crime scenes, each involving different aspects of processing evidence. The first day involved documenting all evidence present at our crime scene, and the subsequent days involved processing that evidence and taking into account missing persons reports and possible suspects given to us along the way. Some types of evidence we dealt with at our crime scene (Crime Scene 2) were forensic entomology, odontology, blood typing, mitochondrial DNA, autopsies, skeletal analysis, and DNA processing.
This project was definitely one of my favorite projects we’ve done in Biology all year. I was very excited at the prospect of puzzling through a criminal investigation, and that enthusiasm was renewed every day in class as we processed each piece of evidence. I thought it was extremely cool how one piece of evidence would link to another and eventually lead to a conclusion. It was very interesting for me to see how easily an investigation can follow the wrong trail and become completely meaningless. As for my collaboration with my partner, I felt that it was very much helped by how fascinating the content was, as I feel we were both really engaged in what was going on so we got a lot of work done together and were really efficient. Despite my initial excitement about the project, though, I was very disappointed that our crime scene ultimately was a cold case, as I was really looking forward to “apprehending” our culprit.
This project was definitely one of my favorite projects we’ve done in Biology all year. I was very excited at the prospect of puzzling through a criminal investigation, and that enthusiasm was renewed every day in class as we processed each piece of evidence. I thought it was extremely cool how one piece of evidence would link to another and eventually lead to a conclusion. It was very interesting for me to see how easily an investigation can follow the wrong trail and become completely meaningless. As for my collaboration with my partner, I felt that it was very much helped by how fascinating the content was, as I feel we were both really engaged in what was going on so we got a lot of work done together and were really efficient. Despite my initial excitement about the project, though, I was very disappointed that our crime scene ultimately was a cold case, as I was really looking forward to “apprehending” our culprit.