Having this much fun has never been so serious.

John Mousso, Jack Schubert and Jenna Kuhn, all Marion juniors, figured their Forensics class this school year might be enjoyable. Or at least easier to grasp than Chemistry. 

And for all three, their hunch has proven to be correct.

“I had a choice between Chemistry and Forensics,” said Jenna. “So I looked up forensics and thought it looked cool.” 

For most of us, the introduction to forensics comes from television shows. We see how crime scenes are evaluated and observed. And in this Marion class, the process is the same. But then again, it’s not. 

“There is a lot more to it than what I thought,” said Jack. “A lot of different things can be left behind.”

Finger prints, hair, prints and tracks all play into the forensics process and when students recently got to work on identifying prints themselves, the hands-on experience was exciting. Using the same material dentists use to cast molds of teeth for patients, Marion students cast for footprints outside of the school. Then they got to work studying the molds and clues to identify which shoes the prints belonged to.

“We matched up the prints and the size,” said John. 

It worked. The students were able to match the print to the correct shoes that left prints in the mud.

“That’s what we strive for,” teacher Becky Goodman said of the hands-on learning experience. 

John, Jack and Jenna don’t plan to enter fields of study after school that are centered on forensics, but the lessons are making science fun.

“All the activities we do are pretty interesting,” said John.