Thinking Like A Forensic Scientist: Learning With Academic And Everyday Texts

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Two of the most challenging issues facing teachers today are how to engage adolescents who are growing up in a digital age surrounded by popular culture media and how to relate school content concepts to real life. Teachers have reason to be concerned because secondary students report that what they learn in school is boring and has little relation to everyday life outside of classrooms (Guzzetti, 2002). Adolescents complain that they are more interested in and learn more from their own explorations with the media and the Internet outside of school than they learn in their content classes (Magnifico, 2007).

It is difficult to know how much students actually learn from their own explorations in informal settings or how students relate the concepts they learn in school to their Tag Heuer Carrera Replica knowledge and skills acquired through interactions with media or digital texts, such as websites, television programs, video games, and trade books. However, identifying the appealing elements of these alternative texts could assist teachers ...
... in designing instructional activities that are relevant to and motivating for today's students (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood, 1999).

In this article, I describe how one high school chemistry teacher, Sharon (pseudonym), implemented a literacy-based unit that appealed to her students by capitalizing on their out-of-school interests in forensics and how her students responded to that unit. I also describe how two colleagues at her school joined her in teaching forensics during the following academic year. In doing so, I explore the range of related literacy activities that students employed both in school and on their own outside of school and shared with me in interviews or through questionnaires. I also provide examples of how individuals related the knowledge and skills that they learned from their interactions with everyday texts in informal settings to the science concepts that they learned in class. Finally, I identify the appealing features of alternative texts and textual practices that could be re-created in designing instruction in classroom settings. Although these activities were science related, their appealing features could be incorporated into instruction in other content areas as well.

Forensic science is the application of scientific knowledge to solve legal problems (Dillon, 1999). Teachers who incorporate components of forensics (such as solving real-life crime scenes) report that students view these activities as more than just schoolwork, but as a way to solve problems in everyday life by using science (Brooks, Green, Kleck, & Muench, 1995). Educators have observed that forensic activities have resulted in students Omega Replica Watches increased engagement in science activity (Colgan, 2002; Learner, 2003) and enthusiasm for science (Colgan, 2002; Murk, 1986). Forensic activities have helped students to think critically like scientists by analyzing the world around them (Dickie & Percival, 1986).

Secondary students have reported their interest in forensics and their regular viewing of forensics-related television shows, such as CS7 Crime Scene Investigation, CSI New York, CSI Miami, Numb3rs, and Forensics Files (Guzzetti, 2002). As a result, school districts across the nation have begun offering classes in forensics in secondary schools as science or elective credits. These classes have become some of the most popular classes that schools offer (Angier, 2009). To address the demand for more material on forensics suitable for secondary students, publishing companies have begun to produce forensics textbooks for high school students, such as Forensic Science: An Introduction (Saferstein, 2008).