Add your comments to discussions and findings as the Boneyard Science discovery team talks about forensics, why it is interesting, and what students want to know as they explore the field. The experts at University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Anthropology have created an exciting new eForensics web site in development at http://www.eforensics.info.The site will encourage users to take what they learn at the eSkeletons Project web site 
and apply it to investigations on the eForensics site.
The discovery team will serve as tour guides and mentors for a group of middle school students who are eager to learn more about forensics. Please participate in learning more about Forensics by adding your comments and questions.
My name is Elizabeth Abernathy, and I am a teacher at Kealing Middle School in Austin, Texas. For the last two years I have been lucky enough to teach a semester-long elective on Forensic Science for magnet 6th graders, but the lessons I use could be adapted for almost any grade level or subject. My degree is in geology, and I am certified to teach science grades 6-12, but before I organized the curriculum for my class I had no training in forensics. Most of the lessons I use came from books in the public library, a few teacher manuals for forensic science, and a high-school curriculum passed along to me from a chance meeting at a science teacher conference. The exciting thing about teaching forensics is that more and more resources for teachers are being produced, so there are a wealth of ideas to choose from. My class is an introductory survey where we learn the beginnings of identifying fingerprints, hair analysis, forensic entomology, and which ever other topics that particular class thinks are interesting. There are even simpler mysteries that can be set up for elementary classes, such as those listed in the “Mystery Festival” book published by LHS GEMS. In the other direction, there are high-level chemistry labs found at the CourtTV website.
By posting on the NSDL website, I’m hoping to encourage other teachers to start a forensics elective at their school, or to incorporate forensics lessons into their regular classes. For example, when talking about genetics, you could do Punnett squares about blood typing. I’m also planning on having my students this semester add to my posts, and help answer any questions. They are also very excited to be a part of this project!
Hi All,
My name is Lauri Thompson, and I am the Project Manager for eSkeletons.org. I am a trained physical anthropologist and an archaeologist. My area is human osteology - BONES! I am very excited about our new website (in progress) http://www.eForensics.info. The site is not currently live, but for the purposes of this blog you are able to reach the site through the link on the introduction page or http://webtest.austin.utexas.edu/eforensics/ this is our development server and not the actual website address.
The eForensics Project website is designed for the practical application of osteological knowledge gained from the eSkeletons.org website. eForensics.info is focused on the study of Forensic Anthropology and offers an interactive set of teaching modules that allow users to learn the standard methods in osteology (skeletal anatomy and biology) that are used to identify skeletal remains and, in some cases, the cause of death. These methods include Age and Sex Assessment, Stature and Ancestry Estimation, and observations on Pathology (disease) and Taphonomy (after death processes) and are the evaluation techniques forensic anthropologists use to gain important information from a skeleton.
eForensics, when finished, will also offer teacher lesson downloads for different age levels, focusing primarily on middle and high school. However, both sites, eForensics and eSkeletons, are designed for learners of all ages. We are excited to participate in this blog and hope to gain valuable feedback towards both the construction of the new website and information as to what lessons provide the greatest interest for students.
For a starting point, how many of you had previously heard of the term “taphonomy”? Now that you know what it means, how many different things can you think of that would affect bones post-mortem (after-death)? On a deeper level, what are some of the taphonomic processes that could possibly cause a scientist to draw an erroneous (incorrect) conclusion when analyzing a skeleton? What could some of those conclusions be?
Best,
Lauri
I looked at the taphonomy information on the htt;://webtest.austin.utexas.edu/eforensics development server, and it’s very interesting. I had not heard that word before. Next week I’m going to have my class check out the website, and answer the questions Lauri posed in the last paragraph of her post.
That’s great Elizabeth, I’ll look forward to the exchange! Please do keep in mind that the site is under construction. Best, Lauri