Camp CSI Birmingham Gives Campers Clues to Science

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Most parents would take exception with a summer camp where their children were looking at methamphetamine and cocaine, maybe even if they were fake. Not so, however, for parents of Camp CSI: Birmingham attendees. Last week, campers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, all of them high school students from the Birmingham area, spent five days engrossed in the real-life science behind the three CSI television series.

For the first four days, campers at the program, hosted by UAB’s Department of Justice Sciences, spent the morning being briefed by grad students and forensic science/criminal justice faculty, and working in six different teams collecting samples from different crime scenes. Then, they spent the afternoons in the lab with UAB grad students, testing blood samples, extracting DNA, and matching simulated meth and cocaine samples to a substance database. On Friday, the the teams work together on one big case. Each team collected evidence from a different part of the scene. In the afternoon, they testified about their evidence in a mock trial.

This sounds like an great opportunity for students turned on by chemistry and biology. The camp cost $199, plus a $50 registration fee, and included lunch and a snack, daily.

The camp curriculum lists the following objectives:

• Help students develop their analytical skills;
• Help students learn (by doing) the steps involved in the scientific method;
• Teach students how to collect, preserve, secure, analyze, and present evidence;
• Expose students to current generation equipment and methods used in forensic-based laboratories;
• Expose students to the reality of forensic-based investigations of crime scenes;
• Allow students to have fun while learning about such topics as DNA, fingerprints, criminalistics, and related forensic-based concepts.

Birmingham area students interested in this program for 2009, should check out the UAB Department of Justice Sciences website, especially the Camp CSI Birmingham: 2008 page.