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Forensics in the Classroom in OSU onCampus
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Team 3
Cassie, Joe, Keima, Bryn and Michael
Monday, August 6
Yesterday, we learned about the basics
from Captain Rose. He told us about evidence and drawing the maps of
the scene. The search and rescue dogs came in after lunch. They are
trained to find missing people and they have a good bond with their
owners. Then we watched CSI and Bones.
The most challenging thing was working together to
make a map of our desk by measuring the room. The coolest thing was the
cadaver dogs (they were so cute!). The funniest thing was the teachers
yelling at the crime shows. We learned a lot about the dogs and all of
the things wrong about the TV shows.
Tuesday,
August 7
Yesterday we came up with questions for a round table
discussion. We learned a lot of interesting things during the
discussion, like how they almost always had a story for every
situation. After the round table discussion Captain Rose taught us to
mold a print in the ground and then we went outside and molded our own
tire track. We came back inside after we were done and ate lunch.
After lunch we learned about photography and what settings should be
used for certain situations. When this lesson was over Professor Angel
showed us a slide show of pictures from crime scenes she had been to,
many of which were gruesome. The coolest thing that happened yesterday
was learning about photography. The most challenging thing was finding
a fresh and intact tire track to mold. The funniest thing was when we
pulled up our tire track mold and got a giant glob of mud with it when
we were expecting a perfect mold.
Wednesday, August 8
Yesterday we all arrived drowsy but woke up when we saw chemicals and
vials, DNA testing equipment and let's not forget the horse blood.
Then we had a lecture on blood
where we learned about the different cells in blood such as RBC and WBC,
plasma, also clotting factors. After that we began extracting the WBC
as they are the only ones with DNA. We put the vials of blood in a
centrifuge which separates the RBC, WBC and plasma. Then we attempted
to remove the white cells. After we removed the white blood cells we
went through a series of adding lysis and centrifuging it until we had a
clump of white blood cells. We let the white blood cells sit over lunch
and when we came back we learned how to distinguish between blood
types. The blood type we tested was from “Mr. Jones” and he had a blood
type B-. After this we put purpled dyed DNA into the electrophoresis
chamber to see what Juan’s DNA looked like. As soon as everyone had
each put in a piece of DNA in the machine we began to watch Gattica,
a movie about genetics.
The coolest thing today was the
coagulated horse blood. The most challenging was pulling out the white
cells from the blood. The funniest was watching Tymar test whether or
not the jello was ready. Today was learned how to extract DNA from
blood, differentiating blood types and red and white blood cells.
Thursday,
August 9
Yesterday morning Dr. Yezzo, a forensic scientist, lectured to us about
her work. We learned about trace evidence, organization she uses at
work, what she can use to see what’s happened and how. She told us how
she had put broken windows back together from a crime scene and how you
can tell where and how the window was broken. After putting it together
she is able to tell how the window was broken. The fragment she showed
us had been broken from the inside. This helped her discover that it
would be unlikely to be an actual crime scene. After this she continued
to tell us about other types of trace evidence.
In the afternoon Captain Rose
came back to talk to us about guns. We talked about different types of
guns, bullets/bullet markings, blood spatter, and fingerprints. We
talked about revolvers, handguns, rifles, automatic weapons, and all of
the bullet information for the guns. With the blood spatter he told us
that if you created a central cross, using basic trigonometry like sine,
cosine, and tangent to find the degree at which the blood splattered.
Next we talked about fingerprints and the different fingerprint types:
arch, loop, whorl, and composite. He told us some ways to distinguish
between fingerprints and we practiced them. He also told us how
fingerprints being used in legal matters over time.
The coolest thing today was
making prints. The funniest thing was seeing what some of the students
molded. The most challenging was taking finger prints without making a
mess. We learned some ways to distinguish fingerprints.
Friday,
August 10
On Friday morning Dr. Shetlar, a forensic entomologist, came in to
lecture us. We discussed what kind of cases he would be called to, why,
and what kind of things he would do. He taught us many different kinds
of arachnids/arthropods that would be relevant to his cases. We
discussed many different cases with him that included termites, house
centipedes, and flies. He showed us the different stages in the
lifestyle of insects that would be relevant to calculate the time of
death of the victim or animal. Afterwards, he took us outside to
observe the decomposition of three animals. First, we looked at a dead
raccoon, then a rabbit, and then another raccoon. We were looking at
these to notice what stages the bugs were at, so you could see how long
the body had been there.
In the afternoon we separated
into our teams to search a car. At first it was hard for us to organize
ourselves, but after a while we created a system that worked. First we
took overall scene photos and then we took pictures of evidence on the
outside of the car. Joe taped four different sections on the inside of
the car, Keima collected swabs and worked on paperwork, Michael
collected fingerprints, Cassie collected evidence and information, and
Bryn helped collected the evidence until she had to leave.
The most interesting thing was
all the stuff you actually find in and out of a car. The coolest thing
was learning how relevant bugs actually are. The most challenging thing
was deciding what was important. We learned today that examining a
crime scene is a lot more work than you would think or that CSI shows.
Monday, August 13
On Monday we learned about how to identify
different bones and how to lay them out in the correct order. We
learned how to kind of tell the sex and age of a skeleton. Then we got
to go to our dig site and do a finger tip search. We were assigned to a
grave and set up our site. The hardest thing was figuring out which
sides the bones went on. The coolest thing was getting our grave and
learning how to set it up. We found a skull sticking out of our grave,
so that was cool too. The funniest thing on Monday was finding out that
our skull was already showing out of the ground. We thought that it was
going to be an easy dig, but it turned out that it was harder.
Tuesday,
August 14
We started off the day setting up our tents and getting all
of our materials put together. The first thing we had to do was rewrap
our string around the nails because it had gotten loose overnight. Bryn
drew our second map with the foliage gone and the head and shoe
showing. The grave we had as a group was shallow and small. When Bryn
had finished drawing we dug another four inches or so and found a
wallet, a part of a belt, another shoe, a hand, and part of a shoulder
blade. We took a break digging at this point to let Michael draw the
next map. After he was done we dug until the whole body was exposed.
At this point Joe drew a map while we cleaned up the grave. As soon as
the grave was cleaned up we took pictures of it from three different
perspectives and a few shots of the evidence. When that was finished we
were able to transport the body to a body bag and collect all of the
clothing as evidence. When this was done we cleaned up our scene and
started to do paperwork. There was a lot of paperwork even though we
had been doing some along the way. The paperwork seemed tedious even
though you knew it was important. When we finished all of this we
cleaned up the rest of our gravesite and filled in the hole, and gave
all of our evidence to Professor Angel.
The most interesting thing was
did was finding the medicine bottle without the prescription on it. The
coolest thing was finding the spent shell casings. The most challenging
thing was not moving the bones to make the dig easier. We learned to be
careful while using shovels.
Wednesday, August 15
In the morning we met at Lord Hall. The lecture we listened
to was about osteological laboratory analysis or how to identify or try
to identify a person using their bones. It was really interesting to
see how much can actually be determined just be using their bones.
In the afternoon, we were given
a few bones (fake) from the same person and we were told to identify
this persons’ sex, ancestry, age, and stature using the information we
had learned this morning. To determine sex we could use the cranium,
the pelvis, and the width of the head of the femur and the humerus.
Next we got all of the information from the person we dug up and
identified sex, ancestry, stature, and age. We concluded that he was
male, European, 5.7 to 6 feet tall, and between the age of 65-78 years
old. When we had all of our information we searched the missing persons
notebook. We identified our person. It was cool
to see how close of a match he was and that we had been able to
determine this from just his bones.
The most interesting thing was
learning who our victim actually was. The coolest thing was learning
how to identify a person from their bones alone. The most challenging
thing was remembering all the names of the bones and identifying age.
We learned the actual process anthropologists use to try and identify a
person.
Thursday, August 16
Today in the morning, Dr. Larry Tate, a
forensic pathologist, gave us a lecture. The lecture was focused on
medical examiners and coroners. We discussed the difference, budget,
protocol, and example cases. We also discussed death class, Ohio
revised Code 313, the death investigation system, and what medical
examiners/coroners actually do.
In the afternoon, we were
allowed to fix our paperwork and prepare ourselves for trial the next
day. It was a lot of work making sure all of your paperwork was
straight and that the numbers were all the same. By the end of the day
we had all of our paperwork set up and separated by person so we would
be ready for trial.
The most interesting thing was
the crime scene where the guy had been shot and died of a blood clot.
The coolest thing was setting up our stories for court. The most
challenging thing was fixing our paperwork. We learned the difference
between a medical examiner and a coroner.
Friday, August 17
Today was every neat day. We were so
close to getting our suspect connected. Little did we know how
complicated it would be and the littlest thing could destroy us. We did
what you might call a mock trail, but to be more specific we got grilled
by the lawyers today.
We had to pick a job (an expert)
to be and make sure we got the correct evidence and facts that pertained
to us. It was then our job to find a link/connection to the victim and
suspect and convince the jury what we figured out. Each team had their
own struggle and their own good points. Our team got caught and stuck
when the lawyer asked us about something not in our expertise and we
answered which caused the jury to worry about how accurate our evidence
was. However, some teams struggled with proving or showing the jury the
connection or link.
The coolest thing today was the
fact that a real judge and real lawyers came to help us on the trail.
The most interesting thing was watching lawyers question us. The most
challenging thing was actually being on the stand, it is a lot different
than it appears to be.
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