Course title
Forensic SciencePre-requisite
Physical ScienceCourse description
A course designed to apply High School Physical Science, Life Science, and Earth Science standards to the real-world topic of Forensics and Crime Scene Investigation. Includes a survey of general crime scene investigation, overview of the criminal justice system, biological evidence including blood, blood typing, use of phenylpthalein as an indicator for blood/bodily fluids, luminol laboratory practice, DNA structure and DNA as evidence, autopsy and forensic pathology, toxicology (specific to Forensics and biological systems, including LD50 lab), physical evidence such as fingerprints, document analysis, handwriting analysis, ink analysis, footprints/tire track analysis, (each with a respective lab)psychological disorders or mental illness, characteristics of cults, forensic linguistics and linguistic studies, analytical chemistry overview with high-school level analytical chemistry labs (i.e Flame Test, White Powder basic chemical identification of unknowns, ect.), overview of vehicular crime and mathematics and physics equations used at vehicular crime scenes, and a summative staged crime final with a realistic crime scene. Each topic covered includes a minimum of a single lab, with at least an hour long lab each week for an hour. (25% of the course is lab-driven each week, at least, with some weeks containing 75% of class with hands-on or laboratory practice...between 1-3 hours of wetlab per week.) Essentially, this course is a survey of multiple branches of science with scientific practices from each branch through the lens of investigating crime scenes.