CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Many people know about crime scene investigations because of TV. But what about the science behind it? Some students over at West Oso High School taking a stab at forensics.
For five years now the school has offered a forensic science class to its juniors. Teacher Claudia Wallace said this class was offered as an option because of the lack of science classes the juniors had to choose from.
"We didn't have many classes for juniors for science, we only had physics and a lot of students don't do well in algebra," she said. "If they didn't do well in algebra they are going to have a really hard time in physical."
Wallace said the Principal allowed her to teach the course and also offer the earth science class instead of only physics.
The class is very hands-on, with Wallace setting up crime scenes where the students need to solve the cases. They go through the entire process of gathering evidence and even shows them how to the chain of custody works.
Students like junior Jerald Harper enjoys taking the course. He said the class was recommended to him by some of his senior friends and it is something that he is excited about.
"It's like a lot of interesting stuff like bugs, deaths , you get to go over like famous cases like the OJ case, or how Michael Jackson passed away those types of things," he said.
Harper takes what he learns home and said he is able to share things with his family and it's pretty cool.
Wallace emphasized on the importance of a class like this because the students get to learn how to solve real-world problems.
"Even if my kids don't go into forensics, they could apply what they learn here to other aspects of their lives and it's very hands-on so it's not just me telling them how things work," she said."They are following through those protocols in solving those problems themselves and they could take those same problem-solving skills into other areas of their lives."
She hopes to get more students interested in forensics and be able to bring guest speakers such as lawyers and judges so that they can talk about cases they have handled.
Wallace said the high demand for jobs in the forensic world go unnoticed and she hopes to be able to inspire and expose the kids to this opportunity.
