USING EARTH MATERIALS TO ESTABLISH PROBABLE CAUSE – A FINAL PROJECT FOR A FORENSIC GEOLOGY CLASS

Forensic Geology is one of the required classes for Criminal Justice majors concentrating in Forensic Science. A series of projects give students the opportunity to act as experts to establish probable cause to justify a search for evidence at a suspect's property. The projects are based on the jigsaw technique which requires students to work in teams which specialize in the collection and analysis and characterization of minerals and rocks, sand or soil. In order to complete their final projects, the teams are reorganized into four new groups consisting of experts from each of the teams. Their task is to explain and use established procedures to collect, analyze and compare earth materials from four sites to trace evidence found at a crime scene. In order to be sure students understand the uses and limitations of earth materials as trace evidence, each student in the group writes a proposal for their part of the study outlining the rationale for using their particular earth materials as well as the step-by-step methods they will use to collect, examine and compare collected materials while maintaining a chain of evidence. Each group adapts the expert's material to fit into a joint poster. The posters are then peer evaluated at a poster session and changes are made if needed before grading. The final step is for each group to compare the materials from the site they are assigned to the trace materials collected from the crime scene. Based on their results, they draw conclusions about the quality of the suspect's alibi, and whether probable cause for further action was established in a presentation of their findings to an audience which includes faculty from the Criminal Justice Department.