Elective Spotlight: Forensics
By Kerry Flanders
All fingers point to you: In Mr. Peck’s 7th period Forensics class, his students worked on a fingerprint iodine fuming lab project. Senior, Lilliana Hernandez, learned a lot from this lab. “This activity directly relates to the material we’re learning right now. Fingerprints are super important not just in forensics but in everyday life and activities so having a better understanding of them and even just being able to identify them is really beneficial,” said Hernandez. Iodine fuming is a method of identifying latent fingerprints on paper-like items. 'My favorite part of iodine fuming was definitely watching the prints appear. It was really cool to see the paper change color and the print start to take its shape,” said Hernandez.
Previously, Mr. Peck had the class do a fingerprint identifying lab but using a can instead of paper. In this lab, students were taught to use dark powder to detect a latent fingerprint off a can. “I definitely think these methods are extremely reliable. pulling identity’s out of fingerprints is extremely hard and for there to even be options on how to go about it is amazing. I think there may be other ways in the future that are more reliable but right now I think fuming and dusting are pretty effective,” said Hernandez.