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Bringing 'CSI' to science class Teens' TV-fueled interest in forensics leads high schools to teach the subject

Posted on: Sunday, 22 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Bringing 'CSI' to science class

Teens' TV-fueled interest in forensics leads high schools to teach the subject

By NICOLE SWEENEY nsweeney@journalsentinel.com, Journal Sentinel

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Yellow police tape stretched across the classroom at Waterford Union High School. The body lay sprawled on the blood-splattered floor, as the investigators gingerly stepped around the evidence.

"Just be careful that you don't disturb the hair fiber when you're trying to get the blood," one student said.

Never mind that the victim was a doll with yellow yarn hair, or that the blood was Heinz ketchup. For Waterford's criminal science students, the mock murder was an important lesson in crime scene investigation.

Forensic science has become the "it" career among many students in Wisconsin and across the nation, as popular TV shows such as "CSI" and "CSI: Miami" have gotten teenagers hooked on the mix of science and sleuthing.

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., has been flooded with thousands of e-mails and phone calls from students and their parents who want more information on the field. The organization knows of at least 700 middle and high school teachers who, like Waterford's Nancy Smith, have incorporated forensic science into their classes.

Industry experts and teachers welcome the students' newfound fascination, but warn them: Reality doesn't always measure up to the glamour of the small screen.

"This is a very serious, sober business," said Jim Hurley, the academy's director of development.

Educators say they've seen popular TV shows color students' career goals before. Television can play a huge role at a time when students are overwhelmed by the career options, Wauwatosa East High School guidance counselor Mark Kapocius said.

"If there's a show about five attractive plumbers, we might see an increase in that field," Kapocius joked.

And some say that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"I think that's part of how kids try careers on for size," said Shari Schwade, a guidance counselor at Port Washington High School.

Lauren Cattey, a senior at Mequon's Homestead High School, is aspiring to a career in forensic psychology. But it was a career she never would have considered before she became addicted to shows such as "CSI,""Crossing Jordan" and "Forensic Files."

"Ever since watching TV, it kind of intrigued my interest," she said.

But Cattey, 17, says she realizes that the job isn't exactly how it looks on TV.

"I think they make it more interesting," she said. "Like one tiny piece of evidence can solve the whole case."

While the TV-inspired trend has many students looking to study forensic science in college, some are getting started early.

Big interest

Brookfield Central and East high schools saw a wave of student interest in forensic science mentorships last year. Mentorship coordinator Marc Miller got a retired forensic scientist to teach a voluntary after-school class, where students did experiments and learned about everything from hair samples to the trajectory of bullets.

In Racine County, students are clamoring to get into forensic science classes at Waterford Union, Burlington and Catholic Central high schools.

Burlington High's class predates "CSI," but its popularity has skyrocketed over the last couple of years. Now teacher Jo-Ellen Fairbanks-Schutz has four sections of the course with 24 students each. The class is limited to juniors or seniors who have taken chemistry, physics or physical science first.

"I do get some kids who think all we're going to do in class is watch 'CSI,' " Fairbanks-Schutz said. "They usually drop the class within the first day."

Instead, Burlington students learn how to analyze a crime scene, test unknown pieces of glass, lift fingerprints, identify tool- print marks and footprint marks and analyze blood-splatter patterns using tomato juice.

Class sees growth

Catholic Central High School teacher Nancy Jacobson started adding forensic science lessons to her advanced chemistry class eight or nine years ago. "I needed a carrot, I needed an attraction to pull them in," she said.

But students got so into it that Jacobson decided to team up with colleague Natalie Harford to teach a semester-long forensic science class. The class is an honors course, and students must first get a "B" in chemistry and biology.

The class brings in an FBI agent, police officers and forensic pathologists as guest speakers. Students love assignments with such grisly names as "Dollhouse of Death," where they construct a diorama of a crime scene.

"Kids are eating it up, because it's much more of an applied science," Harford said.

It's also attracting the students who aren't typically science- savvy.

"Some of the kids I had in biology who didn't care for dissecting are just fascinated by this kind of science, even though it was about blood and bullets," Harford said.

Waterford Union senior Katie Iverson, 17, has always loved science, but finds her criminal science class the most interesting. "It's not so much like chemistry, with all the formulas," Iverson said. "It's more realistic."

She job-shadowed a funeral home director but now is leaning toward a career in criminal pathology. Not all of her friends, however, share her passion for forensic science.

"They all think it's gross," she said.

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