Wheaton forensics students experiment in college lab
Filing past the mastodon fossil display in the lobby, a group of Wheaton North High School juniors and seniors followed their field trip guides upstairs to the chemistry lab in Wheaton College's Meyer Science Center.
The students, enrolled in Wheaton North's elective forensic science class, were looking for clues that would lead to solving a fictional murder mystery cooked up by college staff. And they would use the college's well-equipped laboratories to understand those clues through chemical analysis.
The group of 14 students was one of three groups from Wheaton North to visit the science center last week for the unusual learning experience.
"This is the third time we've done this," said Betsy Leong, the college's secondary science education coordinator.
Leong said interest in bringing Wheaton North students to the college to learn about forensics was sparked when she met with area school administrators while seeking grant funding for the program. Though the grant was rejected, the program is going forward funded by the college, Leong said.
"It's to allow students to see what a career in this field might really look like," said Erica Loiacono, public relations director for Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200.
The student groups also visited the DuPage County Coroner's office for an inside look at that office's functions, said Wheaton North Assistant Principal Julie Pavlini, who accompanied the students on the trip.
Before the experiments got underway, chemistry lab manager Melody David led the students to the building's lower level, which houses a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. The machine can use magnetism to determine chemical composition.
"This is the big, research-grade NMR," David said.
"It's extremely rare for an institution to have an NMR for its undergraduate facilities," Leong said.
The high school students would use smaller, less powerful NMRs to carry out their experiments.
When they arrived in the lab, David explained their mission. The fictional "CSI"-type story goes like this: Nine shepherds' flocks are disrupted when a sheep, a dog and a wolf are found dead. Who did it and why?
Outfitted with safety goggles and gloves, students used the tabletop NMRs to analyze chemicals to piece together the sequence of events that led to the animals' deaths.
They also looked for clues in pieces of a note they found, written in invisible ink. Lab equipment rendered the scraps visible.
Student volunteers, lab staff and teaching assistants supervised while students handled chemicals and used the NMRs to yield clues.
"This is awesome," Wheaton North senior Alyssa Yates said. "I actually didn't know what to expect. I think it's really great to get some hands-on experience rather than just working in a classroom."
Yates said she is interested in forensic science.
"I like investigating," she said.
Her lab partner, Sarrah Farraday, also a senior at Wheaton North, said she was pleased to have the opportunity to take advantage of Wheaton College's educational facilities.
"It's really interesting. It's really cool. Not a lot of students get to do it," Farraday said. "I might look into physics more."