Some friends and I recently attended a four week Forensics Camp through the Rock Valley College Continuing Education program. They sucked me in by appealing to my authorial sense of wonder. As in, I wondered how I could work these scientific details into a story!

Every Tuesday for four weeks, my friends and I met for an early dinner before heading to RVC for fun and learning. At capacity with 20 students, this was the first time the class had been offered to adults. The teacher, Laura Constant, has taught this for kids as a STEM class. She said she had a lot of parents who were interested in learning about forensics, too, so she pitched the idea.

Not only was it a lot of fun, it was also an interesting and educational experience. Each two hour class was jam-packed with hands on activities. We did experiments with (fake) blood, (our own) fingerprints, (dye-representative) DNA, sample handwriting analysis, and tested a series of (legal) white powders. We were provided with our own supply filled toolkit and a binder for the many detailed hand-outs. The last class included a crime scene where we had to work through all of the things we had learned and apply the results to solving the mystery.

I took the class in hopes of informing my writing.
But I’m pretty sure I could get away with murder now.

Just kidding, I need more training.

I hope they offer a Forensics Camp 2.0.