Newtown Students Become Crime Scene Investigators

By Sarah Scinto

Students enrolled in a summer camp offered by Newtown Continuing Education did much more than watch CSI on television this past week: The students learned how to apply the skills they see on television to real life.

On Friday, July 13, the six students in the Crime Scene Investigation Camp unraveled a mock crime scene using the skills and investigative methods they learned throughout the week.

“We worked with fake blood that acts like real blood, and we made footprint molds out of Plaster of Paris,” camper Lucy Henderson explained, listing just a few of the skills she learned. “I thought that was totally cool.”

“We’re trying to get them thinking in different ways,” co-instructor Laurie Borst said on Wednesday, July 11. “We’re introducing new science skills and challenging them to think outside the box.”

Karen Pierce and Ms Borst oversee the course. The two instructors focused on teaching their campers to work well in groups, while applying their learned skills to solve a crime scene, Ms Pierce explained. They introduced their students to methods such as fingerprinting, chromatography, blood-typing, and deductive reasoning throughout the week.

After explaining and demonstrating these methods, they stepped away and allowed the students to solve the final mock crime scene on their own. Students worked in pairs on Friday to assess the information found in the mock crime scene, including footprints and notes, and more that were written in ink.

The camp certainly achieved its purpose; many of the students seemed hooked by the science and drama of crime scene investigation.

“I like how you get pumped up before you solve something,” Lucy said. Her classmate, Grace Howgiggo, shared Lucy’s excitement.

“I like science and how things work, and crime solving is like that,” said Grace.