Crime Scene Investigation Lesson Review

This article is written in a way that it can be taken and written into a lesson plan. It discusses how students use critical thinking and exploration of hands on materials to investigate a “... See More

This article is written in a way that it can be taken and written into a lesson plan. It discusses how students use critical thinking and exploration of hands on materials to investigate a “crime scene.” It begins with establishing the materials students will need to complete the lesson and how to get students prepared while also mentioning accommodations that could be made for students will motor skill or verbal concerns since there is a lot of discussion in this activity. Students are then introduced to the crime and they begin to discuss and problem solve who they think committed the crime and why but how do they know? This is when they experiment with different soils. Science safety procedures come into play during this time by having the fifth grade students explain to the teacher what they should do to be safe and smart with their materials. After students “investigate” and decide who their main suspect is, they must prove why. They get stuck in a trap and realize they need to compare more soils. This calls for more experimentation = hands on investigation. Throughout the whole lesson, the teacher is asking higher level critical thinking questions in order for the students to understand why they are investigating the soils and why they are doing so in specific ways. I appreciate this article because it provides me with a science lesson to do with fifth grade students when working with nature and soils but also provides ways for me to lower the level if I am teaching to younger grades such as third or fourth grade. I also appreciate how students are able to use technology such as the iPads to learn about the different kinds of soils instead of using textbooks. I also enjoyed the idea of the lesson as I whole with it being a crime scene investigation. Completely fiction, but it was still something for the students to relate to the real world and I feel like that doesn’t happen enough these days. Another thing I enjoyed was it was a majority class discussion activity. Obviously students still had to be assessed at the individual level but it was done based on critical thinking questions and the data they brought to the table and how their groups performed experiments and handled their materials. 10/10 lesson and article!