Two Online Forensic Science Games

Earlier this month David Andrade published a good collection of resources for teaching about forensic science. In his list he mentioned a couple of resources that I had written about but since forgotten about. Those resources are CSI: The Experience and the Smithsonian's Catching Killers.

Rice University partnered with CBS, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History to produce educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are five cases of increasing difficulty in the CSI web adventures. The web adventures are available in English, Spanish, and German.

Catching Killers is a Smithsonian Channel production. The show examines (in sometimes gruesome detail) how science can be used to solve crime mysteries. The Catching Killers game asks players to try to catch a serial murderer on the loose. The murderer can be caught by generating leads, correctly following up on leads, and correctly analyzing evidence. Catching Killers is not something I would use with students younger than high school age. I say that not because the game is particularly gruesome in detail (it's not) but because some of the video clips that are on the rest of the site could be inappropriate for students younger than high school age.