STEM Clubs

School: Tolworth Girls' School and Centre for Continuing Education Status: In progress Date Started: 17 Aug 2009 Keywords tags: No of pupils: 0 Number of views: 5395

We set ourselves up as crime scene investigators and each week learnt a new technique. The girls all had a passport that needing stamping each week to show that they had completed the course, if they managed to complete 5/6 seesions they pass and received a CSI Tolworth badge.

Session 1 was flame tests. The girls had to try out different chemicals and then identify an unknown.

Session 2 was DNA extraction. Following a standard procedure the girls had to extract DNA from wheatgerm.

Session 3 the girls made plastercasts of their footprints in some soil and analysed them the following week

Session 4 the girls found an outline of a body on the floor with 2 drops of blood. The story was that there were 2 suspects, one reportedly shot him while he was sitting down, the other standing up. the girls had to drop blood (red food colouring) from different heights, measure the diameter and compare to the evidence to determine which suspect was guilty.

Session 5 The girls learnt how to do chromatography using different food dyes. They then had to idenitfy which dyes were in a mixture. They then made their own to test on each other.

Session 6 was working out which type of fingerprints the girls had. We bought some CSI kits from Tesco which included powder and dusting brushes, as well as crime scene templates and other gadgets. The girls had to identify the type of fingerprints found on some glass test tubes.

Overall this was a very successful first project as it was very hands on, different each week and the girls got to know each other very well. We put details and photos of the project on the plasma screen in the school foyer for everyone to see