- April 17, 2024
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Justin Condrey swabs blood evidence off leaves at the crime scene. PHOTOS BY SHANNA FORTIER
Forensic entomologist, Jason H. Byrd, Ph. D., spoke to 80 students Monday, March 21 about identifying remains and determining cause of death.
School resource deputy Erick Kuleski Jr. set up a crime scene for the students, complete with fingerprints and blood evidence.
The scene at Buddy Taylor Middle was taped off and marked with evidence markers.
Dr. Jason H. Byrd, forensic entomologist, shows students how to find maggots on decomposing meat.
Students used fingerprint powder to dust for latent prints.
Students extract maggots from decomposed meat for further examination.
Advanced Science students at Buddy Taylor Middle School solve Mock crime scene.
The scene was set. The crime tape was up, and the evidence markers were down.
A group of 80 seventh-grade advanced-science students waited anxiously behind Buddy Taylor Middle School. It was the day they had been waiting for. The day they became crime-scene investigators.
As a culminating activity in their forensic science unit, Denise Harshbarger and Larry Tanenbaum’s advanced science students had the opportunity to process a mock crime scene, which was set up by school resource deputy Erick Kuleski Jr.
But before any processing was done, there was one last lecture.
Forensic entomologist Dr. Jason H. Byrd, with the William R. Maples Center for Forensic Medicine and University of Florida College of Medicine, taught the students about his field.
Byrd has worked on many famous cases and consults for the TV show “CSI,” Harshbarger said.
But, Harshbarger said, no other resource deputy has made this unit come alive like Deputy Kuleski.
“With his help, this unit has become more than just a unit of study, it’s a staple of the BTMS seventh-grade advanced-science curriculum that students look forward to all year,” Harshbarger said. “Erick has brought his expertise in crime-scene investigation to the classroom and has brought this unit of study to heights that would have never been possible.”
At the end-of-unit crime scene, student teams collected tire and shoe impressions, liquid and dry-powder fingerprints, blood evidence and “bug evidence.”
Investigative teams began to process their evidence the next day in school and will eventually question suspects.
But Kuleski is tough, Harshbarger said. Very few kids get it right.
“The seventh-grade advanced-science forensics unit is everything that I, and every other science teacher in the universe, want my students to be able to do when they leave me for the year,” Harshbarger said. “It’s rigorous scientific thinking and scientific literacy at its best.”
For more photos from the mock crime scene, click here.
