CURRICULUM FOR FORENSIC SCIENCE:

A BIOCHEMICAL APPROACH

COURSE OUTLINE

This course is designed to challenge students with topics such as fingerprinting, DNA analysis, blood typing and spattering, trajectories (for ballistics as well as blood spattering) comparative anatomy, and chemical analysis of drugs, poisons, and trace evidence, and the dynamics of Physics.

Students will learn about the careers involved with Forensic Science and will play mock roles as experts in the field to solve crimes. They will learn team work in solving the mock crimes and have a chance to change their roles as the year progresses. The students will all be given the tools to interpret data and techniques involved for both chemical and biological analysis of evidence.

CURRICULUM PACING GUIDE: There are ten segments to be taught in three marking cycles. Some of the material will require more time than others but you should expect to cover about three topics or units per marking period.

  1. History and Development of Forensic Science
  2. Organization of the Crime Laboratory
  3. Services of the Crime Laboratory
  1. The Crime Scene
  2. Processing the Crime Scene
  3. Legal Issues at the Crime Scene/ good lab techniques and safety
  1. Physical Evidence - Types and significance of Physical Evidence
  1. Hairs, Fibers, and Paint
  2. Morphology of Hair
  3. Identification and Comparison of Hair
  4. Types of Fibers
  5. Comparison and Preservation of Fiber Evidence
  1. Fingerprints
  2. History of Fingerprints
  3. Classification of Fingerprints
  4. Methods of Detecting Fingerprints
  5. Preservation of Developed Prints
  1. Forensic Serology
  2. The Nature of Blood
  3. Forensic Characteristics of Bloodstains
  4. Stain Patterns of Blood
  5. Principles of Heredity
  1. DNA
  2. What is DNA?
  3. DNA typing
  4. Gel Electrophoresis
  5. The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)
  6. The Collection and Preservation of Biological Evidence for DNA analysis
  1. Drugs
  2. Drug Identification
  3. Collection and Preservation of Drug Evidence
  4. Chemical Analysis of Drugs using Spectroscopy
  1. Forensic Anthropology- bones and comparative anatomy, Bertillon measurements
  1. Entomology- How bugs can give a time-line for death and bug morphology
  1. Final Project
  2. Use of all the above techniques and information to create their own crime for another team of forensic scientists in their class to solve.
  3. Ability to solve a crime that is developed for them by another team of forensic scientists in their class or another class.

PURPOSE OF THE COURSE

Students will:

  • Apply knowledge learned in previous courses such as Biology and Chemistry
  • Work independently and in groups to apply that knowledge
  • Use scientific terminology to describe the techniques they are using
  • Understand how science is used to solve societal problems such as crime
  • Incorporate History with science
  • Explain how Criminal justice fits in with Forensic Science
  • Understand that Forensic Science is applied Biology and Chemistry
  • Learn the new uses of technology in solving crimes and issues of biometrics.
  • Expand their use of the English language to document what took place and how they arrived at their conclusions
  • Understand that there are limitations to what physical evidence can tell us but that the evidence does not lie
  • Expand the use of critical thinking