Science Sleuths: Forensics For Kids

As a homeschool educator, I'm always sleuthing out new opportunities to integrate the sciences with the arts in my lesson plans. Recently, I was delighted to learn that the Science Museum of Richmond has a forensic science exhibit for kids. "Science Sleuths" is a hands-on opportunity for kids to explore the science of the human body, while developing their deductive reasoning skills.

Kids get a first hand look at the various ways forensic scientists help law enforcement professionals solve crimes. Exhibits explore the our DNA, and how our uniqueness enables investigators to narrow the scope of possible suspects. How forensic artists use witness observations to recreate an image of a suspect's face. How forensic anthropologists use what they know about human bones to identify the features of decomposed bodies. How our own digestive system can reveal the secret of a victim's last meal, or the presence of a particular insect can shed light on the approximate time of death.

These kinds of activities can become fuel for engaging creative writing projects, and home or classroom based experiments. Don't worry if you don't have a "Science Sleuths" exhibit at your local museum. You can easily create opportunities like this on your own!

For example, The Barrie School in Silver Spring, MD recently offered their students a one week forensic science program, where students were given a fabricated crime scene, and the tools to solve it.

The summer months also offer unique opportunities for kids to explore science through summer camp programs like this one, offered through the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Too far from home? Try Googling forensic science camps near you. You'll be surprised how many are offered through your local museums, universities, and recreation centers.

Like this summer camp, sponsored by the Seattle Science Foundation, where students perform crime scene investigation, forensic anthropology, fingerprinting, serology, toxicology, hair analysis, DNA analysis, and forensic psychology.

If you're an educator looking for ways to include forensic science in your curriculum, I've found some websites you should check out.

The Kids' Science Challenge offers entire units on forensic science with a downloadable curriculum for grades 2 - 12, including reading suggestions, writing topics, experiments, and discussion prompts. Click this link, then scroll a third of the way down to the section called Detective Science Project.

The Science Spot Kid Zone provides an organized list of links to websites featuring activities, experiments, videos, and resources about forensic science. Find information on everything from fingerprinting, blood analysis, entomology, accident reconstruction, and our favorite -- mysteries. For teachers, they offer links to complete lesson plans on a variety of forensic topics, such as hair and fiber analysis, DNA, chromatography, impressions, and more.

Are you a teacher or parent who's found an exciting way to introduce forensic science to your student? Have you participated in a forensic science program you think we should share with our readers? Respond in the comments and let us know! We want to hear from you.

ELLE COSIMANO set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She lives with her husband and two young sons, and divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riveria. Her YA novel NEARLY GONE will be published by Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin in March 2014, with a sequel coming in 2015. Learn more about Elle on her website, twitter, facebook, and Goodreads.

Lessons from a 5-year-old Gumshoe

I've created a mystery-loving monster. In the past week, my five-year-old son has transformed into a hard-boiled private investigator. To protect his anonymity, I'll call him Special Agent G--.

Special Agent G-- has become keenly alert to anything out of the ordinary or slightly off-balance. Menace lurks around every corner. ("Listen! Did you hear footsteps? Music? Squeaking?") Disaster looms. ("What if robbers break that loose door handle -- and steal my Legos?" Clues mount. ("Look! A dried green pea! A scratch on the placemat! What could it mean? We have to solve this mystery . . . before it's too late!")

Is this a boy who admires his mystery-writing mother and seeks to follow in her footsteps? A budding Encyclopedia Brown?

I can hope. But I suspect this is a child who's had a little too much TV on his summer vacation. In the mix might also be his developmental stage, as he becomes more aware of the world.

But I'm enjoying this phase. I love watching him work out possible mystery threads. In this long, last stretch of August, lacking summer camp or reliable childcare, trailing my young sleuth around the house is often the only exercise my mystery-writing brain can get.

For example: just this morning, after finding the dried green pea and the placemat scratch, and after hearing an unusual sing-song-squeak sound (really the dishwasher, overloaded and straining), Special Agent G-- gathered more clues. Then he listed them:

• Writing, on an art print, that hadn't been there before. (In fact, the writing -- the artist's spidery signature -- had always been there. I just think he hadn't noticed it before, high up on the wall, and he's suddenly taller, so his vision range has changed. But what a cool idea, looking at an old print of a ship at sea, and imagining writing curling out of of the waves, all on its own)
• Magnetic words on the fridge, suddenly rearranged. (OK, I'd bumped into the magnetic poetry that morning, but why not enjoy imaging more exciting scenarios?)
• The dining room rug turned up on one end, a piece of garlic placed beneath. (I know the cat has an odd habit of batting things under there, but again, why settle for mundane explanation?)

I've learned a few lessons from observing Special Agent G-- on the crime beat this week:

1. Potential mystery is everywhere. Like my son, I can be more alert to the unusual, the out-of-place, the off-balance, the odd, especially in my everyday surroundings.

2. Clues can be right under your nose. Special Agent G-- doesn't roam far and wide looking for his clues. He combs the immediate area. He makes several passes. He goes deep. This is a useful lesson for my own writing. When I run dry, I'm tempted to build in a new scene, a new chapter, with some clue to be revealed. This approach can slow the pace or add needless pages. If I go back to previous scenes, and look harder for potential off-balance things, I may find existing clues, or places to plant clues.

3. Mysterious incidents can have multiple explanations. As adults, we are quick to rationalize, to reach for the easy explanations. But Special Agent G-- will stay with a potential clue longer, looking at it from various angles, coming up with several scenarios. My sleuths and sidekicks could do that too. Red herrings could be explored in this way.

4. Child characters in a mystery don't see the same things as adults. If I have young characters in my mysteries -- sleuths, sidekicks, or secondary characters -- they may notice different things depending on their age, developmental stage, personal interests,, or, simply, height. Would a 42-inch-tall person notice something amiss that a 5'7" adult would overlook? Would a kid who knows there are fun napkin rings to play with in the buffet discover the missing silver long before the adult who is focused on dusting the top?

We never did solve the Mystery of the Kitchen Phantom this morning. We had too much fun unearthing and discussing clues; we never followed them to a conclusion or thought about which clues might be linked and which were unrelated. That's perfectly okay. After all, we're not writing a story.

Oh, and as it turns out, my son is a gumshoe in more ways than one . . . there really IS gum on his shoe, which explains the unusual stickiness on the floor. And now I'm on to my next mystery. How to remove gum.

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Diana was born in Seattle and now lives outside of Boston with her husband and son. TOKYO HEIST (Viking/Penguin, published June 2012) is her first novel.