Author Description

This exciting GEMS festival guide features two imaginative and compelling mysteries, one for younger and one for older students. Students observe the "crime scene," then conduct crime lab tests on the evidence at classroom learning stations, analyze the results and try to solve the mystery. Whether it be "Who Borrowed Mr. Bear?" or "The Mystery of Felix," your students will be enmeshed from the start and intensely involved throughout; debates and new insights continue long after the activities are over. Many key content areas are explored, and the important distinction between evidence and inference is emphasized. Crime lab tests include thread tests, powder tests, DNA, chromatography, fingerprinting and many more. "Mystery Festival" combines fun and excitement with careful experimentation, logical thinking and real-life connections to forensic science. The students' understanding of the nature of science is deepened as they experience the ways that science is like the process of detection. Modifications are suggested for presenting the Mr. Bear mystery to first graders. Skills developed include: observing, comparing, relating, sorting, classifying, analyzing and evaluating evidence, making inferences, distinguishing evidence from inference, problem solving, logical thinking. Time: Five 45- to 60-minute sessions for each mystery.