Clad in white lab coats and blue gloves, 13 high school students spent Tuesday morning analyzing hair samples in a basement lab at the University of Montana.
CSI: Missoula is a summer course offered to high school students from around the country as a chance to immerse them in the world of crime scene investigations and forensic analysis. It’s only eight days, but the class packs in back-to-back activities, speakers and field trips that run through what it’s like to process and investigate a criminal case from start to finish.
“We try to make it as hands-on as possible,” Tabitha Marko said.
Marko, a graduate student studying anthropology at UM, is instructing the course alongside Bella DeCiccio.
The course attracted students from a variety of states, including Texas, Idaho, and Washington.
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“I was just looking at anthropology courses in general, I looked all over the country because anthropology is one of my interests, I love studying it,” said Kiera Sherman, from Whidbey Island, Washington. “And this was the most appealing one, I like the forensic anthropology aspect of it.”
At the Electron Microscopy Lab on Tuesday, students looked at mock crime scene evidence, including hair samples, bodily fluids, and bone identification through microscopes. They used hair from their own heads, which they then prepared on a carbon sticky tab and coated in gold/palladium sputter.
The course weaves in elements of both forensics and criminology.
“It gives them a good breadth of exposure to everything,” Marko said.
Last week, students visited the Montana Crime State Crime Lab in Missoula. They also listened to a presentation from a Missoula Police Department detective, who fielded questions from the group about what they might expect if they chose a career in law enforcement and how criminal investigations work.
This is the second year UM’s offered the course, which is part of the university’s Summer Exploratory Program. James Tuttle is an assistant professor in UM’s sociology department. He, along with Meradeth Snow, helped develop the framework and initial ideas for the course. This year, they conceptualized a case for students to follow loosely based on the Missoula Mauler (Wayne Nance), a serial killer operating out of Missoula in the 1980s.
Some of the cohort’s students are set on pursuing degrees related to criminal justice work, while others took the CSI course just to try something new.
“I’m looking into forensics for a career, and I wanted to do this before I actually try it in college,” said Ethan Bowen, a senior from Sandpoint, Idaho. “This is like a crash course.”
Zoë Buchli is the education reporter for the Missoulian.
