Academy of Saint Elizabeth Students Get a Taste of Forensic Science

The Academy of Saint Elizabeth Investigative Science students are solving a murder. The high school was recently visited by detectives from the Morris County Sheriff’s Office who helped set up, in conjunction with Academy science faculty, an extensive mock crime scene within the school gymnasium and the adjacent campus grounds. The students worked in teams to photograph the crime scene, create sketches, and record notes from several different locations.

In the Investigative Sciences class students are introduced to forensic science practices with a focus on the analysis of physical evidence found at crime scenes. Under the direction of Detectives Rae and Brown from the Sheriff’s department, students located and collected crucial pieces of evidence, such as financial paperwork, an incriminating letter, a bullet casing, hairs and fibers, clothing, a laptop, and footprints.

As the school year progresses, students learn additional methods to analyze various pieces of evidence and narrow down the list of suspects to a single perpetrator of the crime. As a culminating experience for the course, a visit to the Morris County Police Academy is planned for January 2015.

Read more about the Academy of Saint Elizabeth on the web at: http://www.aosenj.org