Teachers TV: Primary Science - Part 2 - Collecting the Evidence

A crime scene has been discovered by children from Year 6 at Wylde Green Primary School in the West Midlands. In this programme forensic scientist and Scenes of Crime Officer, Robin Slater, invites the children to become crime scene investigators, gathering and examining the evidence from the scene of the crime. Throughout the day the children interview their suspects, lift fingerprints from evidence, compare handwriting from a shopping list, take finger prints from their suspects and measure strides and footprints. They also use electronic microscopes to examine fibres left on a rusty nail at the scene. Using chromatography they assess if the writing from the shopping list can be matched with a pen used by one of their suspects. Pieces of evidence link all five suspects to the crime scene, but only DNA fingerprinting will show the children 'who dunnit'.