It’s up to the students in Pace High School’s Forensics Academy to use their forensic skills in collecting evidence and ultimately finding the culprits responsible and motives behind two separate mock crime scenes, located in the school’s Freedom Hall building.
Click Here: To view a photo gallery from Pace High School's Crime Scene Project
On Tuesday, the crime scenes were presented to two groups of forensic students. The first consisted of a bathroom in which the victim was found unconscious in a puddle of blood. The second crime scene consisted of a camp site murder.
Each group set up a crime scene with background information and evidence in order for the opposing forensics group to process the case and solve.
“We are testing the other group and they are also testing us,” said Jacob Young, a forensic student. “We are putting all of the knowledge we have learned to the test.”
Young said a lot goes into crime scene investigation unlike what is commonly seen in many popular procedural police shows found on television.
“It’s much more difficult,” he said. “The technology they show (in such TV shows) is either in prototypes or it just does not exist…we are stuck with a little brush and the powder.”
Young is among several students in the forensics program who are interested in pursuing a potential career in forensics following graduation.
Forensics instructor Katherine Byers, who also has a degree in criminology, said the first-year curriculum saw more student interest than anticipated.
“The first time that we said anything about it, I was thinking we would have 15 to 20 (students) and with 45, we actually had to turn people away,” Byers said.
Byers hopes to expand the academy in order to encompass more aspects of not only criminology, but other careers as well in the future.
“We are hoping to grow it into a full academy,” Byers said. “Maybe bring in law studies, psychology and perhaps even do something with firefighters and EMT’s to make it a full service academy, so our kids can get ready in order to go into a career field in this area.”
Students had to put in a lot of work into creating the opposing class’s crime scene, Byers said.
“Part of the process in the last five weeks, they have not only had to create the scenarios, they have had to create backgrounds for the victim and all of the suspects as well as create known samples to compare to what they get from the crime scene, so they can actually come up with a perpetrator.”
In addition to finding the perpetrator, each group is tasked to find the motive and opportunity in bringing the case together, Byers said.
After the groups process the crime scenes, each group will have the opportunity to inquire the opposing group about the case they created. Each group is tasked with solving the cases by next Friday, Byers said.
Forensics student Kristen McKnight said she has enjoyed the overall experience of learning about forensics.
“It’s been an really amazing experience,” McKnight said. “I’m impressed with how quickly things are pulled together to show the different aspects of forensics, like trace evidence, class evidence (and) blood splatter.”
Like Young, McKnight is interested in possibly pursuing a career in forensics.
“I’m definitely been interested in possibly becoming a crime scene investigator or just forensics analysis or anthropology,” she said.
Fellow student Maddie Knorr worked the bathroom crime scene by taking photos of evidence at the scene.
“I feel like we got a good amount of samples and we have plenty of information to figure this thing out,” Knorr said. “It’s fun, it’s like you are really trying to solve this crime.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Pace students put forensic skills to test in Crime Scene Project (PHOTOS, VIDEO)