ON C O U R SE
Summer Session Sleuths The Crime On November 13, 1842, two prominent and well-respected farmers were murdered at Smith Farm in Old Fields, Long Island, New York. [Editor’s note: This is a true story. The house where the 19th-century murder occurred still stands at the intersection of Park Avenue and Little Plains Road in the town now known as Greenlawn.]
The Victims • Alexander and Rebecca Smith The Suspects • Henry Bawer, veteran farmhand • Anton Geisler, new farmhand • Mary Ann Abbot, household help • Francis Curran, peddler The Goal of CSI Andover Working together, students must figure out who committed this gruesome crime. They must use forensics skills developed throughout the course to evaluate crime scene evidence, analyze suspects, and, finally, draw conclusions.
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Andover | Fall 2014
CSI Andover: Anatomy of a Crime A Summer Session course for rising eighth-graders Instructed by Rebecca Roy and teaching assistants Summer Washburn ’11 and Meghan Johnson During the five-week Summer Session course CSI Andover, 14 Lower School Institute students gathered in Gelb Science Center with instructor Rebecca Roy to solve a real-life murder mystery (see sidebar, left). The students, who hailed from as near as Andover and Lawrence, Massachusetts, and as far as Beijing and Tokyo, buzzed with excitement. Some were drawn to the course because they watch the popular TV show CSI. Others, like Jamille Taveras from Lawrence, signed up because they’re curious about criminal justice. And Jaehyuk “Jason” Lim from Songdo City, Incheon, South Korea, says, “Forensic science drew my attention because this part of science includes the life or death of a person, which matters.” Roy, who is in her fourth year as a Summer Session teacher, says the class generates such a high level of interest because it explores a field that’s not often in the public eye. “On the news, you see all the crimes that are committed,” she says, “but you don’t see how they’re solved. Here, students can get into the investigation aspect.” During the school year, Roy teaches forensics, chemistry, and, this year, engineering at Northeast Metro Tech in Wakefield, Massachusetts. She’s also certified to teach physics and math.
Opposite page: Iris Deng shows off her inked fingers after recording her prints in the class’s fingerprint database. Students later identify “mystery prints” related to a mock crime scene.
Left: Teaching assistant Meghan Johnson (right) offers advice to Lynda Moran (left) and Tyler Cross as they make clay impressions of different crime scene paraphernalia, including keys, tools, shoes, and prints. Each object provides an additional piece of the crime-solving puzzle.
In the first days of the course, students used primary source material to look closely at life in 19th-century rural America, study details of the crime scene, and become familiar with the suspects. They also received an evidence list from the State of New York Homicide Investigative Unit that included blood droplets, footprints, hair strands, glass shards, and fingerprints. Each week they toggled between the classroom and the lab, between learning about the science of analyzing evidence and actually doing analysis. For example, when working on the hair module, they first learned about the morphological characteristics of hair, then moved into the lab to analyze their own hair under a microscope and, finally, the hair samples of both victims and suspects in the Old Fields murder investigation.
Right: Rebecca Roy helps Jennifer Lord (left) and Davina N’Orng properly apply ink to each fingertip; students are shocked at how difficult recording a simple fingerprint can be! Students become familiar with different inks and powders, as well as cyanoacrylate, to identify prints on different surfaces throughout the lab.
by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe Roy was impressed with many aspects of her dedicated group, but she was especially impressed by their inexhaustible fascination. “We literally looked at hair for six hours,” she says, “but they never got bored.” Each Wednesday, the class took a field trip. They checked out the “Body Worlds: Vital” exhibition at Faneuil Hall, took part in a Watson Adventures “whodunit murder mystery” at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and visited Lizzie Borden’s house and a natural history museum in Fall River, Massachusetts. During their final week, they visited the Andover Police Department and the Nashua Street Jail in Boston. The students enjoyed all of their getaways, but the whodunit murder mystery was an especially big hit. “I liked working as a group and putting together our individual skills to compete and find the killer,” says Jenni Lord of Bolton, Massachusetts. Lynda Moran of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, agrees and adds that she also liked the fact that she “got to look at cool art and artifacts” while looking for clues.
Above: Tyler Cross, Iris Deng, Vida Wang, and Andrew Pedicino (background) research the properties of fingerprints by observing enlarged ink prints on inflated balloons. Is the print a loop, whorl, or arch?
Blood used throughout the course was a simulated product—nontoxic, safe, and nonbiological. The student packet for the Murder at Old Fields Forensic Science Lab Activity was provided by Ward’s Natural Science Establishment and Bullfrog Communications, Inc.
Photos by Gil Talbot
As students inched closer to figuring out who murdered Alexander and Rebecca Smith, they kept copious notes and created final exhibition projects. The murderer? You’ll have to sign up for next year’s CSI Andover if you want to find out.
Left: Jennifer Lord and Jason Lim make shoe impressions. Later, Lord and Lim will pour plaster of Paris into the mold to cast the impression for further analysis of wear patterns and unique print characteristics. Will the shoe tread match a footprint at the murder scene?
Andover | Fall 2014
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