Wednesday morning, teenagers Morgan Hoard and Tyler Melvin learned who stole an iPod, using DNA tissue taken from the scene of the crime.
Hoard and Melvin are students at Newton-Conover High School, in Kirby Overcash's honors biology class. On Wednesday, the class got to do DNA fingerprinting using equipment that real forensic scientists would use in their labs.
The Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at UNC-Chapel Hill has a special branch, the DESTINY Traveling Science Learning Program. Two buses, specially outfitted as mobile labs, travel around the state to schools doing science labs.
For the program to come to a classroom, that teacher must go to workshop training and become certified in the lab, Overcash said. He prepared students for Wednesday's activities by discussing fingerprints and DNA analysis in class on Tuesday.
"I wanted to do it so the kids can touch and feel the high-tech equipment," he said. "This makes what they've learned in class more concrete. This helps kids more exposed to things. The more I expose the kids, the more doors that are opened for them to fields they may have never thought of before."
One piece of the real-life equipment students used was a $250 pipette, to measure samples of an enzyme for their three DNA samples. One sample was from the crime scene, and two were from two suspects. The students used the precise measuring pipette to take an exact amount of the enzyme for the three DNA samples each student had.
"We add the restriction enzyme to it so it cuts (the DNA) like scissors," said Cathy Pike, science education specialist with DESTINY.
She cautioned the students to make sure they changed the tip on their pipettes after dipping it into each sample — something that's surely not shown on "CSI."
"If you were a real forensic scientist and didn't change your tip, all your results would come out the same," Pike said. "They would know exactly what you did and you would get fired."
After adding the enzyme to the DNA evidence taken from the "crime scene," the samples were plugged into a power supply and heated, straightening out the DNA from its usual, spiral shape. When the process is finished, students learned who the suspect was by comparing the DNA from the crime scene to the DNA from the two suspects.
The students could tell that suspect No. 1 committed the crime, because the bands of DNA from the sample matched the sample from the crime scene.
Hoard, a sophomore, said she really liked the experiment.
"It was fun and educational," she said. "I liked to experience what real-life forensics scientists do."
Hoard said she was interested in going into the field.
Melvin, a freshman, also said he was interested in going into the forensics field.
"I was very excited when I heard we were doing this," he said. "I did the CSI club in middle school, but we never did anything like this. I'm glad we got to learn how to test crime evidence."
Overcash said one of the goals of the lab is also to help students when they have to take their end-of-course exams.
"Genetics is a big unit, and the students need to understand what DNA is, what DNA analysis is and how it can be used," he said. "They also need to know lab procedures and experiments. I hope that this helps put that into their heads."
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