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.
