Published: July 26, 2007 06:23 pm      

Solving the mystery

CSI Camp kindles forensic flame in younger generation

FAIRMONT — Could I be the next John Grissom?”

That may be a question on one of the 32 seventh- and eighth-graders’ minds this week at the CSI Camp sponsored by GEAR UP, but little did they know they were about to get a real look at what forensic science is all about.

Right around the start of the “CSI” TV show craze, three Fairmont State University faculty members, including Dr. Mark Flood, professor of biology and the director of the forensic science program, were looking for an escape from the traditional science camp. They thought a CSI camp would be a draw and started one in 2001.

This year, the camp runs July 30 to Aug. 3 on the FSU main campus from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Most activities will occur in or around Hunt-Haught Hall. The camp is a mini version of the FSU forensic science program with a bit heavier focus on biology.

“The fascination (with CSI) a lot of time is just figuring out this unknown,” Flood said. “... It’s a natural curiosity in all of us, including these youngsters. And to them, it’s a challenge. You put this challenge in front of them and say figure this out, and they usually rise to this challenge.”

If the students came in wanting to do exactly what Warrick and Horatio do on CSI, then they will soon find out the truth. Flood says that less than 5 percent of the lab work they see on “CSI” is the way it would play out in real life.

“It’s very inaccurate and misleading,” he said. “They don’t have people coming in and out of the lab and contaminating the evidence. And (it’s misleading) in terms of how long and how painstaking the techniques are they have to do, how precise and accurate. It’s not all fun and games. It’s hands-on, but it’s not all fun and games where every little activity is going to be fun. Some of it is very tedious where they have take measurements or be accurate with temperatures.”

There will be four FSU faculty members, one criminal justice student and six biology- and science-oriented students available to guide the students. The students, who are from GEAR UP schools, are from all over the region.

At the camp, they will do about 15-20 different activities. They learn to collect evidence, process evidence and the whole big picture behind forensics, Flood said. They will do fingerprint analysis, blood typing, identifying unknown substances, shoe impressions, handwriting analysis and a simulated autopsy on a fetal pig. The large project they will do throughout the week is the “group mock crime scene,” where the students leave evidence for other groups to solve the mystery.

“Team building skills and learning how to apply what they learned — they don’t really understand they are doing that,” he said. “I like that about the camp. They are forced to do that in such a way that they don’t realize they are doing that and by the time they realize it, they’re doing it.”

Flood hopes the younger generation gets a good grasp of what forensics is all about.

“My desired outcome for the camp is to give them some exposure to what real-life forensic science is,” he said. “Not expecting they would major in this, no expectation they would choose a career in this field, but that they would be exposed to what this career is about and make their decision from that.”

For more information, call Flood at 367-4309.

E-mail Jennifer Roush at jroush@timeswv.com.