Thursday, July 14, 2005

Students probe forensic science

Camp turns kids into detectives for week

LA MONICA EVERETT-HAYNES

Tucson Citizen

Samantha Gdovin knows she wants to become a crime scene investigator, but the high school senior doesn't know what the job involves.

Gdovin will know by week's end.

Since Monday, Gdovin and more than a dozen other high school students have been involved in a weeklong University of Arizona summer camp called "Forensics: The DNA Detectives."

The camp, the first of its kind at the university, is meant to turn students toward science while removing the mystique from forensic science.

"I want to know these things before I go to college and pay all of this money on something I may not want to do," said Gdovin, 17, who attends Cienega High School.

Most of the students probably don't realize it, but real word forensic science has little in common with television shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Law & Order," said Al Agellon, the camp's coordinator.

"There's a lot of interest in forensics, partly because of the television shows," Agellon said. "But we want to correct the perception of forensics and give them the real flavor of being a forensic scientist."

UA's Arizona Research Laboratories biotechnology division and BIO5 Institute worked together on the seminar.

Tucson Police Department detectives and crime scene technicians were invited to talk about investigations and the type of material collected that eventually leads to convictions or acquittals.

At a mock crime scene, students learned how to pick up DNA evidence, latent prints and determine the movement of a bullet.

They also learned ways DNA forensic work can identify the father of a child and, as part of the session on courts, how forensic scientists interpret and testify their laboratory results.

"This is not what you see on television," Agellon told the lab full of students Monday morning. "It might be exciting; it might be boring."

That day, Jessa Moore said she was surprised to learn so much - and on only the first day.

"I hoped this camp would teach me more about what forensic scientists do," said Moore, 17, who will be a Mountain Ridge High School senior in Phoenix this fall. "I didn't know about all the different divisions."

Among the forensic science disciplines are criminology, law, physical anthropology, psychiatry and odontology, a specialized field of dentistry that includes analyzing bite marks and identifying bodies.

"That one kind of surprised me because I didn't think it had anything to do with this," said Zuleima Cota, 16, who is interested in odontology.

"I feel pretty undecided but think I could go on and possibly get a career with that," the Pueblo Magnet High School junior said.

Valerie Fraizer said she, too, is concerned about careers.

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