Forensic science information isn’t just for television.

Local high school students are spending this year studying the scene of a possible murder.

Sylvia Lamb’s biomedical science class is performing a crime scene investigation for the second year through Project Lead The Way, a non-profit organization that creates science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programing for students.

“This is how we start our year,” Lamb said. “They start with a forensic twist.”

The mock scene in the

courtyard of the Hinds Community College Vicksburg-Warren Campus was investigated by students Tuesday morning.

“We’ll use this to help us as a focus. We will study all year how this dear lady died,” she said.

Students took notes on the scene before them in their notebook and took photos with their photos to document every piece of evidence.

“First we are going to determine, is it an actual crime or was it natural causes or accidental death? From there we will study what things might have led to her death,” Lamb said.

Each piece of evidence was examined by Warren Central junior George Powell and he had a few different theories of what happened from accident to possible murder. He plans to go into a career in criminal forensics, and he thought the course would help him work toward his goal.

“In the class of biomedical science you’re basically dealing with people’s DNA and their test results. Then you go to examine them to see what exactly is wrong or right with them,” Powell said.

The project gives students a foundation and sets them up with true-to-life reasons to learn certain areas of biomedical science.

“As we go through and learn things, suddenly you have a reason to want to know about diabetes or heart disease or sickle cell anemia. So as we’re studying it, we have an actual personal focus as to why we would want to know about that,” Lamb said.

Warren Central sophomore Sean Daily was already formulating scenarios for what he thought happened to the lady who died, and his theory was that she fell and hit her head. He saw the class do this project last year when he toured the building and thought it looked interesting.

“I’m interested in being a doctor,” Daily said. “I thought this would be interesting because it’s a little bit different.”

The biomedical science course is mostly for students looking to enter the medical field in occupations life doctors, pharmacists and veterinaries. The class is made up of ninth through 12th grade students from Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools.

The crime scene was staged by a second year law and public safety class in the career and technical program.

“Ms. Lamb gets a scenario and we set it up by the scenario that she gives us,” teacher

Anthony Renfroe said. “It helps my students understand a little about forensics.”

The Mississippi Department of Education supplied Lamb’s class with up to date equipment, she said, and Hinds Community College provides a state of the art lab.

“In 25 years of teaching, I’ve not ever had all of the equipment I need, the facility I need and the curriculum. It all comes together with this program,” she said.