 "Photo: David J. Olender / Assistant Photo Editor")
"I hate you and wish you would die! WATCH OUT!"
This warning was part of a crime scene staged at a Chemistry 300 class on Wednesday evening.
Biochemist Mitchell Titus played a dead body lying on an embroidered carpet in an apartment setting, with pieces of "evidence" surrounding him.
As students filed into the "Mysteries and Molecules" class, they gathered any evidence they could locate on or near Titus, even searching under the carpet for a lead. They found carpet fibers, a cup with lipstick and coffee in it, a bag of "drugs," a footprint, human hair and blood.
The class instructor, Kathy McNamara, began in-depth questioning about findings to stimulate students' memory in preparation for the final exam next week. Students smiled as they excitedly answered a chain of questions about each substance located to earn points.
One such chain of questions concerned autopsies.
"How do you identify someone positively at an autopsy?" McNamara asked.
Students answered: DNA, fingerprints and teeth. Then they were asked to classify the death as natural, accidental, homicidal, suicidal, or undetermined. They named three stages of death and the chemical processes involved.
The evidence found in the crime scene before the class produced intriguing results. The dead man had cheated on his girlfriend before dying of a drug overdose. Mixing science with just a touch of soap opera magnetized the students' attention.
The class was inspired by the popular television show, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigations." The show is an idealization of forensic science; one person performs the work of four or five different jobs related to the crime scene.
By the end of the semester, McNamara said her students would be able to recognize "a whole bunch of mistakes" that the program makes.
McNamara created the class to reach out to non-science majors and show how the whole spectrum of science, especially chemistry and forensic biology, can be used to answer many questions of current interest.
She spent time doing research outside her usual fields of study to design the class. McNamara did an internship at a police department and she's currently an intern in a paternity testing laboratory.
But there's more to the class than crime scene studies. Another current topic explored is why air travelers are prohibited from bringing large amounts of liquids into the plane; what exactly would they do with these liquids?
The class also discusses the use of chemistry in the detection of art forgery.
"It's not just looking at a painting with your eyes," McNamara said. "We talk about the different chemical methods, equipment scale-based methods used to actually detect forgery in art."
McNamara said the biggest reward for her is hearing the occasional student say they want to change their major to something within chemistry. Still, she's satisfied in knowing that many students will start reading about forensics a little more on their own.
The fall semester Chemistry 300 class is for honors students only, but the spring semester is open to all students meeting the prerequisites. The class is an interesting way to fulfill the upper-division, general education, natural science explorations requirement.
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