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Homework

  • This first section below chronicles the week to week topics covered in this unit. You can see how each week's skills prepare students for a much larger challenge at the end of the unit.

  • Below that section are some of the handouts and homework from this unit.
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  • Below that section are some important ideas we want to consider when creating homework assignments.

Forensics Unit

  • Below is an example of a 6 week forensics science unit in which the final product was for students to work in small groups to analyze a "murder" crime scene and determine the culprit.

  • This example shows a clear linear progression of teaching particular concepts in order to provide students with the skills and knowledge necessary to perform the final, larger project task.
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  • This unit has real world applications and provides students with many opportunities to utilize and practice the scientific method.

Week 1 - Scientific Method

  • Investigator's agreement
  • Investigator's notebook
  • Introduction to the Scientific Method
  • Inferences vs. facts
  • Formulating questions
  • Tomato lab - Observations
  • Crime scene lab - observation
  • Data collection
  • Data analysis
  • Making a hypothesis
  • CSI - facts vs. media myths
  • History of forensics

Week 2 - Fingerprints

  • Observations
  • Analysis
  • Intro to fingerprint analysis
  • Correct fingerprint recording method
  • Class fingerprint database
  • Loops, Arches, Whirls
  • Enlarging fingerprints for analysis
  • Dusting for fingerprints and lab
  • Experimenting with dusting materials
  • Fingerprints crimescene
  • Teamwork
  • Organization

Week 3 - Chromatography & Handwriting Analysis

  • Intro to Chromatography
  • Intro to microscopes
  • Analyzing types of ink
  • Making predictions
  • Comparing and contrasting
  • Chromatography lab
  • Handwriting characteristics
  • Form, line, arrangement, content
  • Handwriting analysis
  • Ransom note mission
  • Forgery detection

Week 4 - Blood Spatter

  • Creating fake blood
  • Importance of spatter
  • Types of Spatter
  • Measuring spatter
  • Spatter patterns
  • Predictions, observations & analysis
  • Outdoor spatter lab
  • Spatter height demo
  • Spatter height as evidence
  • Spatter on different surfaces
  • Surfaces demo and experiment
  • Spatter surface discussions

Week 5 - Spatter, Interviewing, & Crime Scene Sketching

  • Effects of force on spatter
  • Blunt force objects
  • Experiment predictions
  • Blood spatter simulation lab
  • Spatter analysis
  • Interrogation/Interviewing
  • Interviewing techniques
  • Interview models
  • ​Crime scene sketching
  • Crime scene analysis

Week 6 - Final Crime Scene

  • Solving a "murder"
  • Expert group student choice 
  • Crime scene protocol review
  • Expert teams collect evidence 
  • Analyzing the crime scene
  • Reflecting in expert groups
  • Reviewing the evidence
  • Gathering suspects
  • Agreeing on the culprit
  • Making an arrest
  • Reading the Miranda Rights
  • Reflecting on the final crime scene
  • Reflecting on the unit
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Handouts

  • Handouts like this one help to minimize lecturing (talking at the students).

  • These kinds of handouts allow for student centered learning - they have a guide, you teach them how to use it, and you let them use it as they work. They are also great resources for homework completion
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  • This handout is easy to decipher visually and clearly organized. 

Blood Spatter Lab

  • This lab packet contains new information, warm up questions, prediction, an organizational chart to help keep students on track during the lab, wrap up questions, and possible homework questions.

Homework

  • Student practice and extension of learning.
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  • Creating questions that ask students to evaluate, create, predict, and generally take the information they learned in class and use that information to solve a new challenge or problem.
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Increase Meaning and Quality

  • Student centered

  • Extends classroom learning
 
  • Cultivates content based skills/knowledge and transferable skills
 
  • Requires, encourages, and develops higher order thinking
 
  • Requires thought and planning on your part.
 
  • Requires useful handouts (as resources) organized homework sheets.
 
  • Clear instructions and models
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  • Useful as a transition from one day to the next
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  • Usable in class the next day - the homework advances the class.
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