CSI: Team 4-H

Who do you call when there is a crime? In the future it might be someone from our team 4-H. That's right today our youth got a chance to take everything they have learned so far this week and apply it to their very own crime scene. Their conclusions were very interesting.

We started the day working on exercises that made them think about the details and working on their logical and critical thinking skills. We also shared examples of how science can be used in fun ways to prove or disprove everyday myths, solve crimes, and enhance our lives. Then Corporal Mark Graham with the Robeson County Sheriff's office stopped by and let our youth swarm his patrol car. They were full of questions, wanted to see his handcuffs, try on his traffic vest and uniform hat and wanted to know what all the switches in his car did. It was almost like touring a James Bond car for them.

Lt. Bruce Meares with the Sheriff's office stopped by with two of his colleagues, Forest Obershea and Brandon Patterson. Lt. Meares
talked to the youth about processing a crime scene. They talked about collecting evidence, what needs to be done when he first gets to the crime scene and then reminded them that there are no solutions in the back of a book like in math class, that the evidence will lead him to the solution. He also said that he has to take lots of notes because it could be years before the case comes to trail and he has to try to remember everything because he does not know what will be important.

After lunch, fixed by our wonderful 4-H volunteer, Larry Russ, with a little help from some of our hungry Extension staff members we took to our crime scene. When we started all we knew was that a body had been found on a patio of a beach house, and the body had been sent to the hospital for an autopsy. The side of our Extension office served as our beach house patio for our mock crime scene. After observing what was there our group broke up into eight teams to process grids of the crime scene. They had evidence to collect such as foot prints, cups, cans, a trash can possible full of evidence and red splotches that looked like blood.

After returning from processing the crime scene they learned more about what happened. The victim was rich and not liked. He had just bought the house where the crime occurred and invited four friends. Actually he thought they were his best friends and named them equally in his will but they did not like him much. Each had a motive and an alibi that ranged from walking on the beach to taking a nap. Also to compound things the body had disappeared so there would be no way to determine the cause of death. So we did not know if we had a murder or not. The 4-H members went to the task of processing their evidence. They looked for fingerprints, did smell tests, and foot print analysis. It was an amazing to see them in action. They even filled the chalk board with clues that they uncovered from the evidence they processed. After presenting their evidence, they sat down and tried to figure out the solution. Each team came up with a possible scenario and presented it. Independently they agreed that there was one suspect that most of the evidence pointed to, however we did not have a definitive conclusion.

The neat thing about this exercise was just as in real like there was no definitive solution. It was all a product of where the evidence leads you. To read the evidence you have to understand and use science.

We have one last day to go. To help celebrate our accomplishments we thought we would take this day to the beach, Kure beach to be exact, and explore the world of marine biology at Fort Fisher Aquarium. Stay tuned for the rest of the fun.