Anchorage Daily News

Yellow crime scene tape cordons off the area. Inside the perimeter, lying on the hallway linoleum at Grace Christian School in Anchorage, is a dusting of white powder, an earring, two dried specks of blood and a dozen other items marked for evidence.

Jazmonique Beverly, 12, puts on a latex glove and gingerly picks up a dead bug with tweezers. She brings it to her nose and takes a hesitant whiff.

"Nothing," she says, relieved, and drops it in a brown paper bag labeled No. 11.

Beverly can't wait to piece together what has happened here, a mock crime scene in the South Anchorage school. She doesn't yet know if it's a murder or robbery or even a suicide that has been simulated.

"We have to figure it all out, just from what is behind the tape," she says.

But there are no wrong answers in this whodunit. Beverly is one of 35 kids in a weeklong "CSI" summer camp.

To Beverly's teacher, Leesa Wingo, the goal is to learn how to collect evidence, how to put clues together, and, most importantly, fascinate a new generation with the biology, chemistry and physics all involved with forensic science.

"A lot of it is solving puzzles. ... This is how we hook them," said Wingo, who wears her love of science on her sleeve, sporting a T-shirt with an X-ray of a torso.

Forensic science, long the redheaded stepchild of the science family, has surged in popularity in recent years as the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" television show and its spinoffs have become pop culture hits. Across the country, there's been a growing number of children interested in the science of police investigations -- from toxicology to ballistics to DNA analysis.

Wingo, a longtime South High biology teacher, was one of the first in the Anchorage School District to pick up on the potential of teaching the "CSI" classes several years ago. She began with forensic science as an elective, and other schools followed suit.

The courses have been hugely popular, said Texas Gail Raymond, head of the Anchorage School District's science curriculum.

This summer, even more -- and younger -- kids are climbing aboard, perhaps 200 in all. In addition to the trooper's CSI camp, the district offers middle school students "CSI Anchorage" classes.

Pop culture's influence on kids' interest in science is not new, said Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, based in Arlington, Va. The "Star Wars" movies sparked an interest in astronomy in the 1980s. And, most recently, Wheeler is seeing the "Harry Potter" effect exciting kids.

Teaching science through mock crime scenarios is just "tricky science teachers fooling kids," Wheeler said.

He used the physics example of Newton's Second Law, which explains how an object's velocity and momentum can change. "If the kids can deal with a car that skidded across the road, that's a lot better than talking about Newton's Second Law," he said. "But the fact is, they are still doing Newton's Second Law."

Wheeler also likes that the pop culture influences have involved strong female role models. "In my generation, my classmates of the female gender didn't see any role models."

But from Princess Leia in "Star Wars" to Hermione Granger in "Harry Potter" to the many female characters in the various "CSI" shows, "it is showing girls they have a place in science," Wheeler said.

Beverly, who watches the "CSI" shows with her mother, is thrilled by the science of sleuthing. The camp is run by the Fraternal Order of Alaska State Troopers, a civic group. She has learned about teeth impressions, chromosomes, and even how to shoot a .22-caliber rifle for the unit on ballistics.

As she gathers up the evidence from her mock crime scene, she's glad to take the lead with her peers. It's not all serious, though. Turning to a partner picking up a piece of evidence and directing her where to put it, she jokes that she has no idea what it is and they will have to go back to the lab to analyze it.

"It's either a maggot or a hamster dropping. It's something nasty, that's for sure."

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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