Autopsy Webquest

(Borrowed from:

Upon completing this WebQuest you will be able to:

  • describe the coroner and medical examiner systems and describe their differences and similarities;

  • distinguish between the cause of death and the manner of death;

  • describemedicolegal autopsy and explain when a coroner or medical examiner must perform an autopsy.

You will work independently and report your findings asinstructed. Use the sources listed after each step in the process.Your writing should be grammatically correct with correctsentence and paragraph structure. Run spell-check!

Do not plagiarize the web pages! I will check.

The Process

  1. Go to this link, wait for the page to load, and then click on the NEXT button at the bottom. Work through the learning activity until you get to the end. (Source: Wisconsin Technical College System)Time budget: 20 minutes
  2. Open Word. Type your name at the top of the document.
  3. Write a paragraph in your Word document describing the difference between the coroner system and the medical examiner system. When is each system used? What type of education is required for each? How do they get their jobs (elected, appointed, etc.)? What are their duties?Source 1Source 2Source 3Source 4 Save the document to your student number.Time budget: 25 minutes
  4. Skip down 5 spaces down in your Word document.
  5. Write another paragraph describing the term "manner of death." How many manners of death are there? What are they? How does each happen? There are two additional manners of death sometimes listed. What are they and when are they used? How is manner of death different from "cause of death?" Source OneSource TwoSource ThreeTime budget: 25 minutes
  6. Skip down 5 spaces and then cut and paste the questions shown below into your Word document. Then go to these websites to learn the answers. Type the answers on your Word document and save the file. Source 1Source 2 Source 3Source 4Source 5Source 6Source 7Time budget: 50 minutes