Youth Science Enrichment Program Visits Campus

The police officers working overtime to keep tent city safe finally returned home last week, but an extra crime fighting force—more than 200 strong—descended on the Yard on Friday to investigate a reported kidnapping and enjoy a picnic lunch on the Science Center lawn.

These novice detectives, second through fifth grade students from four area elementary schools, spent Friday on campus participating in ExperiMentors Science Day, a day-long exploration of forensic science techniques hosted by the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) science enrichment program ExperiMentors.

“We thought it would be a nice way to show kids how science works in the real world,” said Sadhna R. Vora ’02, the ExperiMentors director.

Science day began smoothly as all nine visiting classes gathered in the Science Center at 9:30 am for a lesson on fingerprinting and codes by Shawn Dolan, a forensics expert with the Cambridge Police Department.

To help illustrate forensic science in action, the ExperiMentors volunteers decided to script a kidnapping that the students would then spend the day unraveling. Dolan was followed on stage by a guest lecturer who mysteriously disappeared after volunteers lit several hydrogen balloons on fire. The explosion, a laser light show and Mission Impossible theme music indicated to the crowd that the guest lecturer was the victim of a kidnapping and the students were now charged with her recovery.

“This year was the first year Science Day had a story,” Vora said. “I thought it worked really well. The kids really got into it.”

Hot on the trail of the kidnapper, Dolan led the audience in examining each piece of evidence left behind at the scene of the crime.

The students then broke up into smaller groups to analyze the fingerprints, footprints, ransom note and other clues. ExperiMentors volunteers led chromotography demonstrations to pinpoint what type of ink was used to write the ransom note and looked at hair and cloth from the crime scene under microscopes.

Students were also treated to a polygraph demonstration put on by Dennis J. Peloquin, a member of the Association of Massachusetts Polygraphists. After administering a sample test to one of the 40 eager volunteers, Peloquin answered questions about how easy it is to deceive the polygraph machine. When asked, however, whether a lie detector test is always conclusive, his positive response was met with dubious chorus of “yeah, but my mom’s a lawyer,” “my mom’s a lawyer too...” and he quickly concluded the question and answer session.

After the individual classroom presentations, the group reconvened to review the evidence each class had gathered and to identify the kidnapper.

“We talked through each of the suspects and why we could rule them out. They could tell me the science behind each of the explanations. It was really wonderful,” Vora said.

More than 50 students volunteer with the ExperiMentors program and team teach a weekly science lesson in area elementary schools.

Science Day was funded by a grant from the Undergraduate Council and the Massachusetts Campus Compact, an organization that supports community service projects on college campuses.

—Staff writer Rachel E. Dry can be reached at dry@fas.harvard.edu.