photo by Brie Cohen

Rachel Gould, left, and Kayla Hartmann examine the fingerprint they lifted off a pop can after dusting the can with fingerprint powder Wednesday during Jon Hansen's forensic science class at Albert Lea High School. Gould thought the fingerprint looked quite large.

Searching for clues

Students use forensic science to solve soda mystery

Staff

Published Saturday, November 15, 2008

It was the case of the secret pop guzzler.

When eight cans of different kinds of soda were found left around Albert Lea High School teacher Jon Hansen’s house, he asked his students to solve the mystery behind which of his six sons was the culprit.

In his house — because there has been a problem with his sons leaving cans of pop all over the house — he and his wife made a rule: If they find a can of soda sitting around the house, the person who drank that can has to pay a $5 fine.

In this situation, he found all sorts of cans around the house, he said, but he didn’t know who was behind them.

Hansen fingerprinted all of his sons, and using some of the empty cans of soda that were found, the students were to lift the fingerprints from them and compare them to the original prints.

It takes eight to 10 characteristic matches in the court of law to match a print, he said.

For a few days, the students, who are part of the school’s forensic science class, were going to be just like scientists depicted on crime shows on television.

Though it may not have been a typical crime scene for law officers, it was an opportunity for the students to practice the skills they learned.

The students quickly realized that the process of pulling fingerprints and finding a match actually takes much longer in real life than what is depicted on TV. They showed excitement when they began locating prints on the cans and comparing them to the prints of Hansen’s sons.

Hansen gave the background of each of his sons — the suspects — before the students delved into lifting the prints.

The first suspect was 23-year-old Josh Hansen, who has an undiagnosed addiction to Mountain Dew, his father explained. Then there’s 21-year-old Zach Hansen, who is currently dieting for the wrestling season; 19-year-old Beau Hansen, who is also dieting for the wrestling season; and 18-year-old Cody Hansen, who is on a mission for a state wrestling title. He is also dieting for the season, and has been previously found guilty of violating the pop rule. Lastly, there’s 15-year-old Cory Hansen and 13-year-old Lucas Hansen, who are both actually trying to gain weight and who have also been found guilty of the pop violation before, the teacher said.

The students worked in small groups to analyze the cans.

“The main thing is just to keep them interested in science techniques,” Hansen said. “That’s the whole purpose of the class.”

This is the third year for the forensic science class at the school, and it has been taught with much success. When the science requirements switched from having two sciences to three, the teachers tried to come up with some new alternative science classes that the students might be interested in. The school wasn’t getting kids to sign up for the traditional sciences like chemistry.

“It’s a way of keeping it entertaining for them, keeping it exciting so they can still learn,” Hansen said.

So far this year, the class has also learned about gathering trace evidence, sketching a crime scene and the different ways to classify evidence to name a few of the topics.

The students have also visited with law enforcement officers at the Freeborn County Government Center and saw the evidence room and the booking area of the jail. They’ve talked about how an influx of criminal shows like “CSI,” “Law and Order” and “NCIS” has had an impact on society.

“It’s been fun teaching the class,” he said. “I think they really have a good interest in this, so you get a little more participation.”

He has been doing a lot of research and continues learning as he teaches, as he is still fairly new for teaching this subject, he said.

Student Britani Felten, 17, said she hopes to have a career in the field of forensic science.

She enjoys science and math but really got her interest in the field from television shows, Felten said.

“It would be a lot of fun to solve things for people,” she said.

She noted how different the process is from what is depicted on television.

After lifting the prints from their can in evidence, students Kayla Hartmann, 16, and Rachel Gould, 17, said they thought they had recovered the prints for a left hand.

Hartmann and Gould said they decided to be in the class because it looked like fun. Besides being fun, it has also incorporated many basic science principles, they said.

It turned out that out of the eight cans that had been found, Cory was the main culprit, being identified on three cans.

Sons Cody, Lucas, Josh and Zach were also identified on one can each.

One can that had unknown prints, and the students were able to identify that those prints belonged to Hansen himself.

Only Beau was free and clear, the teacher said.

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