Students Engage Audiences with Forensic Science Exhibit

Attention aspiring detectives: put down the magnifying lenses and calabash pipes. On Saturday, April 7, from 11 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Buffalo State’s Criminal Justice Honor Society is teaming up with the Buffalo Museum of Science to present, for the third time, cutting-edge investigative techniques that would give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

Criminal Justice Honor Society members Jason Flores, Dennis DePietro, Tonya Ham, Jack Lucca, Andrew Moffett, Jennifer O’Neil, Danielle Salisbury, and Nobi Thomas have developed an interactive fingerprinting and tracking program that complements the museum’s current exhibit, CSI: The Experience. The students’ program demonstrates how fingerprints are lifted and analyzed in crime scene investigations. The exhibit also educates audiences on the uniqueness of footprints and how they can tell a story about the person that left them.

The students designed several stations with hands-on activities to teach audiences how crime scene investigators collect and store fingerprints. Fuming chambers, forensic powders, blue lights, brushes, and microscopes are used to lift and analyze fingerprints from “evidence” set up by the students.  Participants can also have their fingerprints inked and organized on identification cards, as they would in an actual criminal investigation.

“We spent a lot of time researching and working with Buffalo State University Police to develop this program,” said O’Neil, vice president of the Criminal Justice Honor Society. “We wanted to present the information in an educational and fun way. At our first demonstration, many parents were impressed with how we were able to gear the exhibit towards adults as well as children.”

CSI: The Experience is a traveling exhibit and will be at the Buffalo Museum of Science until April 29. Admission is $11 for children ages 2 to 17, students, and military members. For adults 18 and older, the cost is $14. Discounted prices are available for museum members. The museum is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with special hours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for CSI: The Experience.