Using some of my summer downtime, I have been creating new lessons based on the idea of forensic science. Over the past few years, a common problem I have run into with my teaching is convincing my students that the topics we discuss in class have applications in the real world. I understand their doubts - at first glance it can be challenging to imagine using similarity ratios, unit conversions, or density calculations in our day-to-day lives.
Cleaning out the cabinets in my classroom, I discovered
Crime Scene Investigations: Real Life Science Labs by Pam Walker and Elaine Wood. Using this resource as my inspiration, I created a series of lessons for integration into my Scientific Method Unit for my Earth Science and Life Science classes. For example, next year, my students will use fiber analysis to explore using a compound microscope and to learn how to make detailed, scientific observations. Later, they will use broken vehicle class collected from a "crime scene" to determine mass, use displacement to find volume, and calculate density. I am confident these hands-on activities will boost engagement while also highlighting the relevance of science in the real world.
More exciting for me has been applying this idea of forensic science to my geometry classes! Fortunately, geometry is a more hands-on topic than some other areas in math, but it can still seem context-reduced. Building on my work with the science curriculum, I also created/adapted a set of application activities to supplement the pen-and-paper lessons in my geometry repertoire. For example, working from a Missing Persons activity by Walker and Wood, I created a lesson where my geometry students will take what they have learned about similarity ratios and apply this understanding to forensic anthropology. The students will be given a recovered arm bone and a missing persons roster and then use the proportional relationship between humerus length and height to identify the victim. My personal favorite (though implementation will be quite an undertaking) is a lesson I generated based on blood spatter analysis. Given a staged crime scene, students will use trigonometric ratios to re-create the locations of perpetrators and victims.
This will be my first time using these activities based on forensic science and I will report back over the course of the year to reflect on challenges and successes . . .
For example, one lesson provides students with the an image of/the formula for the area of a rectangle. Students are then challenged to manipulate this image to derive the formulas for area of a triangle, parallelogram, and trapezoid. Together, the visuals and the inquiry opportunities make for a powerful learning experience!