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Student Investigations

Every one of the 28 investigations below hands you a mystery and asks the evidence to answer it. Each one is a self-contained Hands-On Lab a teacher can assign to one student or a small group. We try to make every student investigation focus on real, hands-on bench skills — unless the cost of doing so is out of range for a typical high-school lab. When that happens, we use an online simulated lab instead.

Lab types:

  1. 🧪 Physical (a real bench lab with consumables under $50 per group)
  2. 💻 Virtual (solved with stories and interactive MicroSims)
  3. 🔀 Combination (a physical step plus a virtual step that simulates an expensive instrument)

See our Lab-Idea Catalog for how we got started, and our Summary Table for a list of supplies and risk factors for each of our 28 student-investigation labs.

  • ✅ Locard's Silent Witness

    Locard's Silent Witness cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 1, 2, 4

    Prove every contact leaves a trace by documenting two-way fiber and glitter transfer between surfaces.

  • ✅ Map the Scene — Triangulation

    Map the Scene — Triangulation Documentation cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 2

    Produce a scaled crime-scene sketch by triangulation, then prove it by reconstruction.

  • The Dusting Detective

    The Dusting Detective — Developing Latent Prints cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 3

    Develop latent fingerprints with powder and match them to a suspect exemplar.

  • Cold Case — AFIS Classification

    Cold Case — AFIS Classification Challenge cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 3

    Classify a latent print and search a suspect database the way AFIS does.

  • Human or Beast?

    Human or Beast? The Medullary Index Mystery cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 4

    Measure hair under a microscope and compute the medullary index to sort human from animal.

  • Fiber Under Fire

    Fiber Under Fire — Burn & Solubility ID cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 4

    Identify unknown fibers by burn behavior and solubility using a dichotomous key.

  • The Broken Window

    The Broken Window — Refractive Index Match cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 5

    Use the Becke line to compare glass fragments to a source window.

  • Which Blow Came First?

    Which Blow Came First? Glass Fracture Sequencing cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 5

    Sequence impacts on fractured glass using the 3R rule.

  • Soil Signatures

    Soil Signatures — Matching the Suspect’s Boots cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 5

    Match boot soil to a location by color, pH, and particle layering.

  • Is It Blood?

    Is It Blood? The Kastle-Meyer Presumptive Test cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 6

    Run a presumptive blood test and reason about false positives.

  • Type the Blood

    Type the Blood — Who Was at the Scene? cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 6

    Determine ABO/Rh type from agglutination to include or exclude suspects.

  • Reading the Spatter

    Reading the Spatter — Angle of Impact cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 7

    Measure stains and calculate the impact angle from width and length.

  • Stringing the Scene

    Stringing the Scene — Finding the Area of Origin cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 7

    Reconstruct the 3D area of origin of a bloodstain pattern.

  • From Strawberry to Suspect

    From Strawberry to Suspect — DNA Extraction + STR Match cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 8

    Extract real DNA, then match a simulated STR profile to a suspect.

  • Beat the Odds

    Beat the Odds — Random Match Probability cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 8

    Apply the product rule to compute a random match probability for a jury.

  • Color-Test Chemistry

    Color-Test Chemistry — Presumptive Drug Screening cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 9

    Screen safe unknown powders with color spot tests, then confirm by simulated GC-MS.

  • Point of Origin

    Point of Origin — Reading a Burn Pattern cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 10

    Read V-patterns and char to locate a fire's origin and spot arson.

  • Bones Tell Tales

    Bones Tell Tales — Sex & Stature Estimation cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 11

    Estimate biological sex and stature from skeletal measurements.

  • The Bug Clock

    The Bug Clock — Estimating Time of Death cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 12

    Estimate time of death from larval length and accumulated degree hours.

  • Toolmarks & Impressions

    Toolmarks & Impressions — Matching the Instrument cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 13

    Match a pry mark to a tool by class and individual characteristics.

  • Which Pen Wrote the Note?

    Which Pen Wrote the Ransom Note? Ink Chromatography cover

    🧪 Physical · Ch 14

    Separate ink pigments by chromatography to identify the pen used.

  • Forged or Genuine?

    Forged or Genuine? Handwriting Examination cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 14

    Compare questioned and known handwriting to judge authenticity.

  • Hash It Out

    Hash It Out — Digital Evidence Integrity cover

    🔀 Combination · Ch 15

    Compute and compare cryptographic hashes to detect tampering of digital evidence.

  • Metadata Detective

    Metadata Detective — EXIF Geolocation cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 15, 18

    Use EXIF timestamps and GPS to break a suspect's alibi.

  • Locate the Phone

    Locate the Phone — Cell Tower Triangulation cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 17

    Triangulate a phone from cell-tower records and state the uncertainty.

  • Mapping the Conspiracy

    Mapping the Conspiracy — Social Network Analysis cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 18

    Build a network graph and find the ringleader using centrality.

  • Reconstructing the Debris Field

    Reconstructing the Debris Field — Aviation Forensics cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 19

    Classify a crash debris field and build a probable-cause hypothesis.

  • Face in the Crowd

    Face in the Crowd — Recognition & Algorithmic Bias cover

    💻 Virtual · Ch 16

    Trace a facial-recognition pipeline and evaluate its bias and admissibility.

Looking for supplies, safety notes, per-group costs, and MicroSim specifications? The complete lab-idea catalog documents all 28 investigations in detail, plus suggested rotations and semester-long capstones.