OUR THIRD CSI LESSON!
We did not go through much during this lesson.
For this lesson, we went to the magic lab to do a small pop quiz on fingerprints (basically, what we have learnt so far), and there were also additional questions in the quiz that was based on background knowledge of fingerprints, and not found in our notes/ powerpoint slides. For those questions, we researched for the answers and discovered alot of interesting facts such as the term for the study of fingerprints: dermatoglyphics. I look forward to gaining more of such knowledge! :)
Saturday, 28 July 2012
Second CSI Lesson- Lab work! :)
For this lesson, we got to do some hands-on activities in the lab. We were really excited to get started but before doing any hands-on activities, we had to watch some videos on YouTube to allow us to gain some knowledge of what we will be doing (There's no point doing something when you don't know what the purpose of doing that thing is right...?).
The links to the videos were on the website for CSI lessons' resources and we learnt various methods of identifying, revealing and showing fingerprints on surfaces where fingerprints are printed but cannot be seen with the naked eye. In our previous lesson, we learnt the most basic way of obtaining our fingerprint, which is to put ink on our fingers and print it on paper.
For this lesson, we learnt different methods of revealing fingerprints that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The methods are: iodine fuming, super glue fumes and dusting powder.
Iodine fuming- it is a way to develop prints on porous and non-porous surfaces such as paper, index cards, magazines and cardboard. We were given a strip of paper and all of made our fingers oily by using the oil on our skin (haha gross). Then, the strip of paper is placed into a container with solid iodine. The sublimation of iodine in the closed container will cause iodine vapors to concentrate, then be absorbed by the oil and sweat left behind my human skin. This print is temporary and will be visible as orange/ brown outline. We then cut out our own prints on the strip of paper and stuck it to our worksheet. All the bench members' fingerprints are then inked on that page and labelled as suspects. The fingerprints are then matched to the piece of paper with the temporary print.
Dusting powder- it is way of detecting latent prints. A variety of powders are used in dusting for prints and the powder we used for this lesson is lead powder. This lead powder is obtained by crushing the lead of the pencil using a motar. Then, we made our fingers oily using the oil on our faces and imprinted our fingers on a strip of paper. We then used a brush to brush the lead powder and brushed over the strip of paper to reveal the fingerprints. Next, scotchtape is stuck onto the strip of paper and the fingerprint is transferred onto the scotch tape. Following that, we stuck the scotchtape on a black background in our worksheet.
Superglue fumes- Superglue fuming is a chemical process to reveal latent fingerprints on non-porous items like bottles, firearms, knives, etc. It is by heating superglue, which releases gaseous vapours that adhere to the oily residue of the fingerprint. Firstly, we oiled our fingers and imprinted our fingerprints on a clear piece of plastic. Then we sent it for superglue fuming. Upon development, the fingerprint ridges will appear a white chalky colour. We then each cut out our fingerprint from the clear piece of plastic, and stuck it on a black background in our worksheet.
I think this lesson has been very beneficial as it has brought us up to another level of experimenting and CSI because we get to do hands-on activities. It has built up my knowledge about fingerprinting and I feel like i want to know more about fingerprinting. This is much better than just reading up on notes on fingerprinting.
PHOTOS! :D
The links to the videos were on the website for CSI lessons' resources and we learnt various methods of identifying, revealing and showing fingerprints on surfaces where fingerprints are printed but cannot be seen with the naked eye. In our previous lesson, we learnt the most basic way of obtaining our fingerprint, which is to put ink on our fingers and print it on paper.
For this lesson, we learnt different methods of revealing fingerprints that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The methods are: iodine fuming, super glue fumes and dusting powder.
Iodine fuming- it is a way to develop prints on porous and non-porous surfaces such as paper, index cards, magazines and cardboard. We were given a strip of paper and all of made our fingers oily by using the oil on our skin (haha gross). Then, the strip of paper is placed into a container with solid iodine. The sublimation of iodine in the closed container will cause iodine vapors to concentrate, then be absorbed by the oil and sweat left behind my human skin. This print is temporary and will be visible as orange/ brown outline. We then cut out our own prints on the strip of paper and stuck it to our worksheet. All the bench members' fingerprints are then inked on that page and labelled as suspects. The fingerprints are then matched to the piece of paper with the temporary print.
Dusting powder- it is way of detecting latent prints. A variety of powders are used in dusting for prints and the powder we used for this lesson is lead powder. This lead powder is obtained by crushing the lead of the pencil using a motar. Then, we made our fingers oily using the oil on our faces and imprinted our fingers on a strip of paper. We then used a brush to brush the lead powder and brushed over the strip of paper to reveal the fingerprints. Next, scotchtape is stuck onto the strip of paper and the fingerprint is transferred onto the scotch tape. Following that, we stuck the scotchtape on a black background in our worksheet.
Superglue fumes- Superglue fuming is a chemical process to reveal latent fingerprints on non-porous items like bottles, firearms, knives, etc. It is by heating superglue, which releases gaseous vapours that adhere to the oily residue of the fingerprint. Firstly, we oiled our fingers and imprinted our fingerprints on a clear piece of plastic. Then we sent it for superglue fuming. Upon development, the fingerprint ridges will appear a white chalky colour. We then each cut out our fingerprint from the clear piece of plastic, and stuck it on a black background in our worksheet.
I think this lesson has been very beneficial as it has brought us up to another level of experimenting and CSI because we get to do hands-on activities. It has built up my knowledge about fingerprinting and I feel like i want to know more about fingerprinting. This is much better than just reading up on notes on fingerprinting.
PHOTOS! :D
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| Imprint on glass cover with our oily fingers xD |
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| Brushing the brush with lead powder! |
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| The lead powder :) |
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| MORE LEAD POWDER :) |
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| Can't see the fingerprint now yet huh? wait and you'll see ;) |
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| aqilah and i :) |
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| AFTER BRUSHING- fingerprints are now visible! |
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| sticking fingerprint onto the worksheet! |
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| IODINE FUMES. the after photo. :) |
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| orange brownish marks |
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| taking it out of the container! |
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| Using the magnifying glass to take a closer look:) |
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| Our fingerprints! |
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| Cacia's fingerprints :) |
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| GROUP PHOTO 1 |
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| GROUP PHOTO 2 |
Saturday, 21 July 2012
First CSI Lesson and powerpoint slides :)
In our first CSI lesson, we learnt various knowledge regarding CSI.
To kickstart our educational journey on CSI, we watched a video which tested our awareness. The video was about a group of people passing basketballs to each other and the question in the video was "How many passes were there?' The answer was 13 and many of us answered correctly. However, our attention was so focused on counting the number of passes that we did not notice another unusual happening which was that a bear was moonwalking past the group of people passing the balls. It was quite interesting as a huge number of us didn't notice that. This shows how unaware we are when we focus on a certain aspect too much. Thus, we learnt to be more vigilant.
After going through all the slides on fingerprints classification briefly, we had a worksheet on fingerprints and each group was given an ink-pad to ink our fingerprints on one page of the worksheet. For that activity, all of us got to see how our fingerprints on different fingers looked like.
However, before we printed our fingerprints on the worksheet, we learnt about the different types of fingerprints. There are whorls, loops and arch types of fingerprints. We learnt that fingerprints are used for identification during crime investigation and for other purposes. We also learnt that no two people have identical fingerprints :)
The activity was quite fun and exciting because i've never really noticed how my fingerprints looked like. But for that lesson, i actually got to see the intricate patterns of my fingerprints and i was instantly intrigued to know more about CSI because it gave me a rough idea of what my upcoming educational journey for CSI would be like. However, during that activity, i had too much ink on some of my fingers and i could not really see some parts of my fingerprints due to the huge blotches of ink. I now know that when doing fingerprinting, it isn't necessary to put so much ink on our fingers because that makes it harder for fingerprinting (Less is more in this case!! :) ). Next, we completed some small activities in class. Our whole group printed their individual fingerprints on the worksheet and we chose someone to be the culprit to print their fingerprint on the paper and all of us to be suspects. Next, we handed the worksheet to other groups to make them guess who the culprit is among all the suspects. It was a fun and exciting activity as some of the groups guessed wrongly and had to make multiple guesses to get the correct answer. I believe that from that experience gained from the activity, they will be able to identify fingerprints more aptly in the future. Some groups also had blotchy and inky fingerprints so it was hard for identification.
Next, we learnt about physical evidence and the examples of physical evidence.
I learnt that physical evidence is factual evidence and cannot be wrong, cannot perjure (willfully tell an untruth when giving evidence to a court- meaning of perjure) itself. Only in its interpretation can there be an error when humans fail to interpret and conclude based on the physical evidence. Examples of physical evidences include: fingerprints, shattered glass, lipstick stains, blood splatter/ blood trails, dirt found on the sole of shoes and tyre marks. Physical evidence is a type of circumstantial evidence.
Reflection:
Learning about physical evidences is useful when investigating and exploring the crime scene because with this knowledge of what physical evidence is, we will be more aware of our surroundings when carrying out the investigation and we will know what to look out for to bring back to the lab for more analysis. Thus, we will be able to gather more evidence to aid us in the cracking of the case! :)
This builds up our awareness of our surroundings and increases our knowledge about CSI.
Other than that, we also learnt about other types of evidences.
Direct evidence- 1st hand observations, eye witness accounts, videos, etc.
Circumstantial evidence- Indirect, physical or biological evidence that can link a person to a crime, but does not directly prove that the person is guilty. Physical examples: bullets, fibres, etc. Biological examples: body fluids, hair, etc.
Reflection:
Learning about different categories of evidence can solve our misconceptions about evidence and CSI. In the future, we will be able to classify the evidences under different categories and be more organized in our investigation. More organization leads to less confusion and thus more efficient and faster investigation.
Besides that, we also learnt about the people in the crime-scene investigation team. All of them play important roles in aiding the progress of cracking the case. Last but not least, we learnt about the 7 S's of crime scene investigation. These are important procedures that we have to follow in chronological order. They include:
1.) Securing the scene
2.) Separate and question the witness
3.) Scanning the scene
4.) Seeing the scene
5.) Sketching the scene
6.) Searching for evidence
7.) Securing and collecting evidence.
All these steps are essential in crime-scene investigation as they help to gather more evidence, more information regarding the case. And it would be more convenient to sketch the scene (drawn to scale) and take relevant photographs of the scene instead of repeatedly re-visiting the crime scene for more information. All these evidence and information gathered are then brought back to the lab for more analysis and brought back to the headquarters for more interpretations. From there, they will proceed on with cracking the case.
The above information is obtained from the slides posted online by our teacher and it is an introduction to CSI for us to briefly read and go through by ourselves.
Overall, i found the first CSI lesson quite interesting as it gives us a rough idea of what we are going to be doing and it really motivates me to read up more about CSI. I will be looking forward to the upcoming lessons! :)
To kickstart our educational journey on CSI, we watched a video which tested our awareness. The video was about a group of people passing basketballs to each other and the question in the video was "How many passes were there?' The answer was 13 and many of us answered correctly. However, our attention was so focused on counting the number of passes that we did not notice another unusual happening which was that a bear was moonwalking past the group of people passing the balls. It was quite interesting as a huge number of us didn't notice that. This shows how unaware we are when we focus on a certain aspect too much. Thus, we learnt to be more vigilant.
After going through all the slides on fingerprints classification briefly, we had a worksheet on fingerprints and each group was given an ink-pad to ink our fingerprints on one page of the worksheet. For that activity, all of us got to see how our fingerprints on different fingers looked like.
However, before we printed our fingerprints on the worksheet, we learnt about the different types of fingerprints. There are whorls, loops and arch types of fingerprints. We learnt that fingerprints are used for identification during crime investigation and for other purposes. We also learnt that no two people have identical fingerprints :)
The activity was quite fun and exciting because i've never really noticed how my fingerprints looked like. But for that lesson, i actually got to see the intricate patterns of my fingerprints and i was instantly intrigued to know more about CSI because it gave me a rough idea of what my upcoming educational journey for CSI would be like. However, during that activity, i had too much ink on some of my fingers and i could not really see some parts of my fingerprints due to the huge blotches of ink. I now know that when doing fingerprinting, it isn't necessary to put so much ink on our fingers because that makes it harder for fingerprinting (Less is more in this case!! :) ). Next, we completed some small activities in class. Our whole group printed their individual fingerprints on the worksheet and we chose someone to be the culprit to print their fingerprint on the paper and all of us to be suspects. Next, we handed the worksheet to other groups to make them guess who the culprit is among all the suspects. It was a fun and exciting activity as some of the groups guessed wrongly and had to make multiple guesses to get the correct answer. I believe that from that experience gained from the activity, they will be able to identify fingerprints more aptly in the future. Some groups also had blotchy and inky fingerprints so it was hard for identification.
Next, we learnt about physical evidence and the examples of physical evidence.
I learnt that physical evidence is factual evidence and cannot be wrong, cannot perjure (willfully tell an untruth when giving evidence to a court- meaning of perjure) itself. Only in its interpretation can there be an error when humans fail to interpret and conclude based on the physical evidence. Examples of physical evidences include: fingerprints, shattered glass, lipstick stains, blood splatter/ blood trails, dirt found on the sole of shoes and tyre marks. Physical evidence is a type of circumstantial evidence.
Reflection:
Learning about physical evidences is useful when investigating and exploring the crime scene because with this knowledge of what physical evidence is, we will be more aware of our surroundings when carrying out the investigation and we will know what to look out for to bring back to the lab for more analysis. Thus, we will be able to gather more evidence to aid us in the cracking of the case! :)
This builds up our awareness of our surroundings and increases our knowledge about CSI.
Other than that, we also learnt about other types of evidences.
Direct evidence- 1st hand observations, eye witness accounts, videos, etc.
Circumstantial evidence- Indirect, physical or biological evidence that can link a person to a crime, but does not directly prove that the person is guilty. Physical examples: bullets, fibres, etc. Biological examples: body fluids, hair, etc.
Reflection:
Learning about different categories of evidence can solve our misconceptions about evidence and CSI. In the future, we will be able to classify the evidences under different categories and be more organized in our investigation. More organization leads to less confusion and thus more efficient and faster investigation.
Besides that, we also learnt about the people in the crime-scene investigation team. All of them play important roles in aiding the progress of cracking the case. Last but not least, we learnt about the 7 S's of crime scene investigation. These are important procedures that we have to follow in chronological order. They include:
1.) Securing the scene
2.) Separate and question the witness
3.) Scanning the scene
4.) Seeing the scene
5.) Sketching the scene
6.) Searching for evidence
7.) Securing and collecting evidence.
All these steps are essential in crime-scene investigation as they help to gather more evidence, more information regarding the case. And it would be more convenient to sketch the scene (drawn to scale) and take relevant photographs of the scene instead of repeatedly re-visiting the crime scene for more information. All these evidence and information gathered are then brought back to the lab for more analysis and brought back to the headquarters for more interpretations. From there, they will proceed on with cracking the case.
The above information is obtained from the slides posted online by our teacher and it is an introduction to CSI for us to briefly read and go through by ourselves.
Overall, i found the first CSI lesson quite interesting as it gives us a rough idea of what we are going to be doing and it really motivates me to read up more about CSI. I will be looking forward to the upcoming lessons! :)
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