This month we uncover clues into the science of Crime Scene Investigation. Forensics is the science of finding evidence and analyzing it for clues. Evidence can be anything: blood spatters, carpet fibers, insects, pollen, powders, fingerprints, and footprints. Each piece of evidence reveals something about what happened at the scene of the crime – even if the crime happened hundreds of years ago.
Crime scene investigation:
Blood, Bullets, and Bones: The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA by Bridget Heos (YA)
Crime scene investigation is not new; early detectives discovered ways to test for poisons, and conducted autopsies to determine cause of death. Over the years, crime-solving tools have become more sophisticated as technology improves. This book examines evidence from prints to ballistics, blood spatter to DNA and more.
Fingerprints : dead people do tell tales by Chana Stiefel.
Fingerprints are unique identifiers. Not even identical twins have the same fingerprints. This book explains the techniques scientists use to collect fingerprints and to identify criminals, and contains stories about how fingerprints helped solve real crimes.
Forensics: Uncover the Science and Technology of Crime Scene Investigation by Carla Mooney
This book introduces the science of crime scene investigation, with chapters about fingerprints, blood evidence, bones, and bodies. Sidebars highlight forensic careers, and there are plenty of hands-on activities for kids to try on their own.
Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death by Elizabeth Murray
Forensic anthropologist, Dr. Elizabeth Murray takes readers into morgues and labs where scientists use technology to determine the identities of remains. Filled with case files and a diversity of techniques including facial reconstruction, dental records, X-rays, and DNA testing.
Ancient Cold Cases:
Bone Detective: The Story Of Forensic Anthropologist Diane France by Lorraine Jean Hopping
Meet forensic anthropologist Diane France as she lugs a two-gallon bucket containing a brain …without letting it slosh around. Any other day she might be examining skeletal remains of past royalty or Civil War soldiers, or be called to the site of a disaster to help identify victims. Side bars, photos, and diagrams explain science concepts.
Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker
Forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve mysteries of remains found in colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia. Using science, they help recreate the lives of a ship’s captain, an enslaved African girl, and more.
Two books about the Kennewick Man:
Mysterious Bones: The Story of Kennewick Man by Katherine Kirkpatrick and Their Skeletons 
Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World by Sally M. Walker and Douglas W. Owsley
In July of 1996, two young men accidentally uncovered a skeleton along a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. Was this an unsolved murder or the remnants of a settler’s or Native American’s unmarked grave? Scientists determined that the bones were more than 9,000 years old – transforming our understanding of how humans colonized North America.
Channel your Inner Detective:
CSI Expert!: Forensic Science for Kids by Karen Schulz
This book contains 25 hands-on forensic science activities, including fingerprinting, blood-stain identification, chemical analysis, ballistics, and fiber identification. Each activity is set up as a lab.
Crime Scene Detective Arson: Using Science and Critical Thinking to Solve Crimes by Karen Schulz
This book includes everything teachers (or mystery dinner hosts) need to set up a mock crime scene based on arson. There are suspects to interview, forensic lab tests, and a section on forensic science careers.
Carson-Dellosa Forensic Investigations Resource Book by Schyrlet Cameron, Janie Doss, & Suzanne Myers
This book contains ten cases for students to solve, including forgery, theft, and vandalism. Each case (unit) highlights specific skill-based activities, such as handwriting analysis. Labs challenge students to apply the skills they learned to solve the crime.
One-Hour Mysteries, Private Eye School: More One-Hour Mysteries, and More One-Hour Mysteries by 
Mary Ann Carr
A series of fun classroom mysteries for 4th and 5th graders. Each book provides five mysteries that challenge students to apply their skills of deductive reasoning, inferring, taking notes, organizing data, and analyzing evidence to solve the case.
STEM Tuesday book list prepared by:
Sue Heavenrich writes about science for children and their families, from space to backyard ecology. Bees, flies, squirrel behavior—things she observes in her neighborhood and around her home—inspire her writing. A long line of ants marching across the kitchen counter generated one of her first articles for kids. When not writing, you can find her committing acts of science from counting native pollinators to monitoring water quality of the local watershed. Her most recent book is Diet for a Changing Climate (2018).
Maria is a children’s author, blogger, and poet passionate about making nature and reading fun for children. She’s been a Cybils Award judge since 2017 and a judge for the #50PreciousWords competition since its inception. Two of her poems are published in The Best Of Today’s Little Ditty 2016 and 2014-2015 anthologies. When not writing, or reading, she bird watches, travels the world, bakes, and hikes. Visit her at www.mariacmarshall.com
In one of my Lit classes recently, students read I, Juan de Pareja, a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño. This fictionalized account of the life of Juan de Pareja follows his childhood in 17th Century Spain to his role as servant-turned-apprentice to master painter Diego Velázquez. It’s a great middle grade book for studying voice, historical setting, and imagery. Though only a few factual consistencies are known about the life of Juan de Pareja, the author built this novel based upon those few facts, or what she called a “kernel of truth” (The Glencoe Literature Library).
