With fake blood dripping from the tips of their plastic knives, more than 40 Girl Scouts tried to replicate the splatter pattern from a simulated murder.
The girls worked in small groups to solve three who-done-it mysteries using the blood drop analysis for the murder, comparing tool marks in a faux burglary, and figuring out who ate all the brownies by comparing bite marks. Students for Women in Math and Science assembled the Saturday workshop exploring crime-scene investigation at the University of Toledo’s Gillham Hall.
Marissa Tanner, the student organization’s president, said the group works with girls from grades six to 12 to encourage them to pursue careers in math and science related fields.
“We try to focus on middle school girls, because that’s where they start to lose their confidence and talked out of doing what they love,” said Miss Tanner, a senior at UT double majoring in math and math education.
The group works mostly with area schools and Girl Scout troops. They began hosting workshops last year to give girls a taste of work in fields like chemistry, biology, physics, agricultural science, and meteorology. The crime scene workshop had the largest attendance so far.
“We wanted to show girls that they could be a scientist and not necessarily have to work in a lab,” Miss Tanner said.
Toledo resident Lily Curtis, 12, of Troop 11299 said she loves conducting experiments and wants to become a scientist some day.
“It doesn’t seem as hard as other subjects to me,” she said. “With math, you figure out problems, but science is more in depth, I think.”
But as for a future in science related to police work, she’s pretty sure she’ll pass on that particular field.
“I can deal with corn syrup and red food coloring, but not real blood,” Lily said. “So probably not crime-scene investigation.”
Lydia Swartz, 12, of Whitehouse came with members of Troop 10108.
She said she prefers math over science because it’s more straight-forward to work with numbers, but she still enjoyed the workshop.
“It was fun interacting with different girls and doing something you wouldn’t usually do on a normal day,” she said.
The student organization also provides professional development for its members.
“We always learn from the girls, too,” Miss Tanner said. “It helps develop leadership skills and communication skills.”
Contact Alexandra Mester: amester@theblade.com, 419-724-6066, or on Twitter @AlexMesterBlade.
First Published March 1, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
