Imagine this… You have just received your degree in Forensic Science and landed your dream job working with CSI and the Police Department in your local area. Now, it’s your first day on the job and you have already been assigned to lead the forensic investigation of a crime scene involving a murder that just occurred several hours ago!

As the lead forensic scientist, your investigation will involve 3 parts:

PART I. You will need to “visit” the crime scene, record observations and identify questions that you still have based on your observations.

PART II. After “visiting” the crime scene, plan your investigation by determining what evidence is pertinent to the case, what is extraneous, and identifying the tools you will need. For this part, you’ll need to use books and/or online sources to research and gather information on various aspects of the case that cannot be understood from the physical evidence alone.

PART III. Finally, after gathering and analyzing the evidence and performing a little research, you and your team will meet back with the local police department to communicate the results of your scientific investigation, and generate a hypothesis that outlines the crime based on your investigation and scientific research.

Now, you might be wondering how exactly you’re going to accomplish this when no real crime has actually been committed?! Don’t worry - with a little imagination and creativity, you can get the job done!

Note: When conducting your online research, for example, you may look up ‘tools for collecting glass evidence at a crime scene,’ ‘how to interpret blood splatter,’ or anything else that may not have been explained in the unit or in the crime scene description.

Are you ready? Put on your Forensic Scientist cap, fire up your imagination, and let’s get started!



PART IInvestigation Lab Journal: The Basics

(Notes, rather than full sentences, are fine)

What do you see when you walk on the scene? What are your observations?

What questions do you have based on what you observe?

What physical evidence will you attempt to collect from the scene? Is there evidence to collect that is NOT at the scene? If so, what?

What tools will you need to collect the physical evidence?

What tools or scientific processes will you use to analyze the evidence collected?

Who are some possible witnesses/suspects to interview?

What do you need to know more about in order to make sense of this scene? (This is what you will research online or find out from witnesses/suspects)

PART IIInvestigative Lab Journal: Evidence

Discuss at least three pieces of evidence you plan to collect from the crime scene. For each piece of evidence you plan to collect (for example, fingerprints), provide the following information:

The physical properties for each piece of evidenceThe chemical properties for each piece of evidence (you may hypothesize about what chemical properties the evidence may have or what substances/chemical tests you could use to see how it reacts - you will need to do some online research for this, like searching “forensic soil analysis”)Investigative Lab Journal: Research

List at least three other questions you have or items you’d like to further research. To answer each question or explain an item you’d like to find more about, use your imagination to create witness/suspect testimony/facts not included in story.

PART nvestigation Journal: Series of Events + Conclusions

Wrap up your investigation by describing different possibilities for the series of events that led to the crime and draw conclusions based on your investigation. You can do this by creating a minimum of three conclusion statements. For example, “Based on , I conclude that .”

Reflection Questions:Was the information that you used to research your investigation reliable? How do you know?Summarize your final scientific theory regarding this case based on your investigation. Support your theory with evidence from your investigation. Why are scientific theories often so powerful?