Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

CCSU forensic science program runs next week

The No Child Left Behind Act will open doors next week for biology teachers to attend Clayton State’s Forensic Science for High School Teachers program. An in-service program funded by improving Teacher Quality State Grant Ð Title II, Part A of the No Child Left Behind Act, the course is designed to give teachers the skills and background needed to use forensic science in their high school biology classes.

This year’s course will run from June 21-25, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. All classes will be held in the laboratories of Clayton State’s Business and Health Sciences Building.

The instructors, Clayton State biology professor Dr. Greg Hampikian and Luella High School biology teacher Jane Burke, have developed and school-tested a science curriculum which gives students firsthand experience in the investigation of a mock crime scene. Teachers will learn how to lift latent fingerprints, shoeprints, lip prints, and collect other evidence. They will also learn the basics of trace analysis and participate in DNA fingerprint processing and interpretation.

The classes will be taught by Hampikian and Burke with guest lectures from: Ross Gardner, former police chief of Lake City; Calvin Johnson, Hampikian’s co-author of “Exit to Freedom,” Johnson’s story of his exoneration based on DNA evidence; Casey Morris, Clayton State associate professor of dental hygiene; Pam Bettis of the Clayton State Office of Public Safety; private investigator Patrick Coffey; and Tom McBerry, Henry County’s chief assistant district attorney. Other speakers include the United States Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory’s Lynn Henson, Steve Greene, Daryl Meeks, Don Mikko and Farrell Shiver.

Hampikian and Burke have worked together for many years in their quest to get students more interested in biology. Every year they also collaborate on a “DNA Murder Mystery,” where students in Burke’s high school class investigate the fictitious murder of a member of the high school’s faculty. The course combines lectures, homework, labs, integrated law, genetics, and criminal science into solving the “crime.”

For more information and a full schedule for Forensic Science for High School Teachers, go to http://a-s.clayton.edu/hampikian/forensic/2004/2004inservice.htm.