## Step 4 - Task

Task
You are going to study a crime scene of your own.
Follow the instructions.

See how many clues you can identify in your own "crime scene". Choose a room (e.g., kitchen, living room, bedroom) or part of a room and go over it carefully, finding any trace evidence such as hair, clothing fibers, and chips of paint. You can collect these with a pair of tweezers and place them in envelopes or Ziplock bags to identify later. Are there any prints or scuff marks on the floor from shoes? Bits of soil or rock that might have been brought in? To be thorough, record all of these clues. Make sketches in an investigation notebook if you want to. If you have a microscope, compare different kinds of hair at high power magnification. (You can also use a 10x or stronger magnifying glass.) Examine different cloth fibers, too - try cotton, wool, and rayon or acetate. Make a wet mound of the hair or fibers by putting a drop of water on a microscope slide, adding the specimen, and pressing a cover slip down on top. What does each specimen look like? Is it smooth or rough? How do the ends look? Compare miscellaneous hair and fibers you pick up from the carpet or couch. Can you tell what kinds of fibers they are? Where did they likely come from? Are they all the same? Do you know who or what they belong(ed) to? Check out any dental evidence in your crime scene. Then, if you have some willing suspects, make impressions of their bites and compare the impressions to the evidence you found. A simple way to make impressions is to carefully bite down into an apple or other soft food, but you can also bite into a folded sheet of white paper with a piece of carbon paper inside. Be sure to get both back and front teeth in the bite impression. Write up your crime scene report.

Click here to download your crime scene report.