A crime was committed at RH Dana, so they called in the forensics team from nearby Dana Hills High School to investigate. It appeared someone had stolen all of the cookies from a Bluey cookie jar! The Dana Hills team was eager to take the case, but needed some help from the RH Dana kindergartners to solve the mystery. Could they get to the bottom of it together?
Dana Hills has built up a robust forensics club of over 30 students, forged out of the interest in the school’s forensics science class taught by Mrs. Akintade. They developed a lesson for elementary and middle school students that utilizes forensics principles in a fun, engaging way. On the morning of Jan. 28, 22 forensics students created a crime lab in the RH Dana MPR. Once the students arrived, the crime scene was examined. The clue included:
- An empty Bluey cookie jar
- A note that read- I Love Cookies
- One fingerprint
- Three footprints
- An encrypted message with pictures representing letters
- A strand of brown hair
The students were made official Junior Detectives and assigned to one of four stations to analyze the clues. They rotated through each station, making notes in their official detective logs to determine which of the four suspects could have committed the crime. They studied the fingerprint to determine which kind of unique pattern it displayed, measured the length of the footprint against the sneakers of each of the suspects, analyzed the handwriting and pen color of the note and decoded the encrypted message to learn the number of letters in the criminal’s last name.
Once all the clues were analyzed and deduction was complete, the students came back together to share their findings and come to a consensus- Mrs. Brannam had stolen the cookies from the cookie jar!
Although she was caught red-handed by the Junior Detectives, she had taken enough cookies for each student to enjoy one for a job well done.
