Forensics Weblinks
The Mystery Spot includes an excellent collection of mystery story-boards/ games for students. For example, work out what happened to a group of Artic explorers in 1834 from investigating their journal entries. Along the right-hand side you’ll also find resources developed by and for teachers (although they are aimed at a US audience).
A really good forensics site suitable for all ages is who ate the sweets?. There’s loads of stuff to play with and there are also extensions for teachers. One of the more interesting of these is a 'how to make and record a dental imprint' activity (although if you want a more formal low-down on “forensic odontology” go to the BAFO site ).
Our friends at Science Net know how to appeal to students who delight in the gross - read the section on entomology (the study of insects) to work out how long a body’s been dead. Apparently, some insects specialise in living in very decayed dead bodies- the cheese skipper usually arrives 3-6 months after death (although if you REALLY want to know about this go to forensicentomology.com). More generally, Science Net’s page gives an excellent overview of the possible career roles for forensic scientists.
Crimes and Clues is a huge and detailed site.We haven’t put it on our links-list for kids because it’s just so big, and some of the content might not be suitable for all, but there’s quite a lot (including examples of primary evidence) that might be of great use in lessons.
For a detailed site (heavy on the reading) check out the Channel4-science Forensics section. This provides the more literary minded with a section on the history of forensic/detective-fiction, and their section on the forensics of broken glass is surprising gripping.
But perhaps best is their collection of case-histories where there’s even a competition to enter (as if we’re not offering you enough!)
BBC-i has, as ever, loads to offer:
- The DNA detective site includes games and interactive articles, and as DNA fingerprinting has more applications than just forensics, you can find out how it is used to trace peoples’ ancestry
* Also check out the BBC forensics pages for info on real crimes and details on how forensics solved them, and…
- … BBC Cracking-Crime links into real crime stories that might be useful in the classroom discussions, especially if you are linking Whoduit into citizenship lessons.