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Attorney General Mike DeWine
DeWine Unveils BCI
Science School Statewide
(REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio) – Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced
today that the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) Science School is
now available to teachers and students across Ohio.
Designed for fourth graders, BCI Science School’s free lesson plans
will expose students to the careers of forensic science, criminal
investigation, and related careers at an early age. Students
conduct hands-on, inquiry-based experiments in class and solve relevant
challenges using critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Videos
are shown throughout the lessons that “take” students into the field
with BCI agents and into the laboratory with forensic scientists.
“I wanted to develop BCI Science School so kids could experience what
it’s like to be a detective or a forensic scientist. We hope that
by showing kids when they are young all that BCI has to offer, we will
spark their interest in science and criminal justice careers that they
might not have thought about,” said Attorney General Mike DeWine.
“Since we can’t take every fourth grade student and teacher to BCI,
where they are solving crimes every single day, we thought creatively
about what we could do to make BCI available to teachers and students
to accomplish our goal of early learning and excitement for science and
related fields.”
Today, Attorney General DeWine visited fourth grade students at Herbert
Mills STEM Elementary School in Reynoldsburg (Franklin County), who
worked on extension projects, after finishing the main BCI Science
School curriculum.
“Our teachers and students are thrilled to partner with the BCI Science
School for a hands-on, applied learning experience,” said Brian Coffey,
Herbert Mills STEM Elementary Principal. “Not only is this a perfect
fit with our climate of student growth and learning, but we are excited
to introduce the fourth grade to a variety of career pathways including
forensics.”
With a STEAM-based (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and
Mathematics) curriculum, BCI Science School includes 26 lesson plans
aligned to the Ohio Department of Education’s fourth grade standards,
using hands-on experiments and inquiry-based learning to help solve
fictional crimes. Students help “solve” this scenario:
A farmer named Bob Agriculture is missing, along with his dog,
Buckeye. Bob’s wife calls police when she can’t find the two and
notices their barn has been broken into, chemicals are missing, and
there’s a threatening note on the barn window. Students help
figure out what happened to Bob Agriculture and who might be
responsible. They determine if any crimes were committed.
In the process, students learn about key processes used at BCI:
Cyber Crimes (cell phone pinging and cell phone records)
Thermal Energy Detection
Criminal Intelligence Unit (tracking suspects)
Crime Scene (collecting evidence)
Latent Prints (fingerprints)
DNA
Questioned Documents (handwriting)
Chemistry (chromatography)
Trace Evidence (fracture matches and shoeprints)
Toolmarks
BCI Science School was designed to be flexible to fit an individual
teacher’s needs. For example, some teachers complete one lesson every
day and some teachers opt for one lesson every week. While the
curriculum was developed for the fourth grade classroom environment,
BCI Science School could easily be adapted for after-school programs,
summer camps, and homeschool settings.
Teachers with questions about implementing BCI Science School in their
classrooms can contact BCI@OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov.
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