Explore the connection between science and crime scene evidence by experimenting with forensic science techniques.
Mobile Crime Lab
For grades 3 – 8
- Location: We travel to you!
- Capacity: 32 students
- Duration: 45–60 minutes
- Cost: $280 (travel fees apply outside of Chicago)
- Mobile Labs are offered between 8 a.m. and noon and/or between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Lab goals
Provide a hands-on, student-led activity to spark interest in science and expose students to different career pathways.
Student outcomes
- Have an increased awareness of STE(A)M careers
- Understand the connection between ideas explored and careers that involve forensic science
- Actively engage in inquiry-based, hands-on science investigation
- Work collaboratively with peers
- Communicate using terminology/vocabulary accurately
- Analyze findings, develop a hypothesis and communicate results of who they infer committed a crime
- Identify and describe methods of forensic science techniques including fingerprinting, chromatography, analyzing trace evidence and footwear and powder analysis
Common Core ELA/Literacy Standards
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.1, 3.3, 3.7, 3.10
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.7, 4.10
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.1, 5.2, 5.4, 5.7, 5.10
Next Generation Science Standards
Our Learning Labs are designed to integrate curriculum standards and connections into your classroom!
Science and Engineering Practices:
- Asking questions and defining problems
- Planning and carrying out investigations
- Analyzing and interpreting data
- Constructing explanations
- Engaging in argument from evidence
- Obtaining, evaluating and communicating information
Crosscutting Concepts
- Patterns
- Cause and effect
- Systems and system models
Disciplinary Core Ideas
- ETS 2: Links among engineering, technology, science and society
- PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
