The Forensic Science Course is comprised of 13 comprehensive lessons. They are easy to follow, yet challenging and stimulating at the same time. Each lesson begins with a subject matter preview and objectives, an introductory note from your instructor and a vocabulary builder of new words and terms.
Next comes the reading assignment. Practice exercises help you check and review what you've learned. At the end of the lesson is an open-book exam, which you may take online.
Lesson 1: The Scene of the Crime
Processing and photographing a crime scene; types of evidence; collecting, cataloging and preserving evidence; instruments comprising the crime scene kit; death investigations; distinguishing the cause of death; the role of pathologists; estimating time of death based on stages of decomposition; the autopsy; how coroners conduct and gather evidence in the autopsy process.
Lesson 2: Identifications
Identifying homicide victims; examining dental features, fingerprints, blood-type and DNA; technological advances in DNA analysis; the four basic types of forensic science; techniques for manipulating and analyzing physical images; trace evidence analysis; crime lab instruments and their use in examining hair, fibers, glass, dust and more; serology; using blood type, DNA and semen evidence to solve crimes; forms of print analysis.
Lesson 3: Connecting Evidence to Events
Using science, intuition, induction, deduction and abduction to make crime scene conclusions; toxicology testing; reconstructing a crime scene; pattern evidence; interpreting blood spatter patterns; evaluating eyewitness accounts; criminal logic; profiling: its use and misuse in the science of victimology.
Lesson 4: Explaining the Crime
Deceptive tactics used by criminals to stage crime scenes, plant misleading evidence and lead investigators in the wrong direction; interrogation methods and instruments such as lie detectors, voiceprint analysis and stress evaluators; polygraph results; feigning mental illness, malingering and other criminal tactics; solving forensic puzzles; arson and bomb investigations; determining the true causes of fires; tracing the origin of explosives through chemical analysis; following paper trails to track down criminals.
Lesson 5: From Crime Scene to Crime Lab
The development of forensic science; the five basic crime lab functions: physical science, biology, firearms analysis, document analysis and photographic analysis; analytical and scientific skills of the forensic scientist; how investigators process, secure, isolate and record crime scene evidence using a variety of sophisticated techniques; protocols for collecting various kinds of evidence.
Lesson 6: Physical Evidence, Glass and Soil
Identifying and comparing physical and chemical properties of the most common types of physical evidence; interacting with medical examiners, criminalists and law enforcement personnel to recover and analyze crime scene evidence; an overview of the metric system; forensic characteristics of glass and soil; methods to collect and preserve glass fragment and soil evidence.
Lesson 7: Organic and Inorganic Analysis
Techniques and instruments for examining organic evidence; theories and principles of chromatography, spectrophotometry and mass spectrometry; measurement and analysis tools; analyzing tools, explosives and poisons to gather inorganic evidence; how to determine the elemental composition of materials; atomic absorption spectrophotometry and x-ray diffraction.
Lesson 8: Microscopes, Hair, Fibers and Paint
Using the compound, comparison, stereoscopic, polarizing and scanning electron microscopes; comparative analysis of microscopic evidence; the microspectrophotometer; identifying and analyzing hair, fiber and paint particles; extracting evidence from automotive paint; analyzing paint particles in the laboratory.
Lesson 9: Drugs and Forensic Toxicology
The psychological and physical factors contributing to drug dependence; characteristics of opiates, hallucinogens, depressants, stimulants, anabolic steroids and the so called "club drugs"; drug identification testing procedures; collecting and preserving drug evidence; measuring alcohol in the blood system; breath testers and gas chromatography tests; interpretative conclusions reached as a result of drug tests.
Lesson 10: Forensic Serology and DNA
Blood testing and typing; immunoassay techniques; analyzing blood stains and stain patterns; locating, collecting and preserving blood evidence; semen analysis in rape and other sexually related crimes; the structural components of DNA; base pairing, replication and polymerase chain reaction; the relation of DNA to bodily functions; DNA analysis.
Lesson 11: Fire and Firearm
Arson and explosion investigations; using the gas chromatograph to trace chemical composition and origin of materials; the nature of explosives; combing bomb sites; firearms identification; tool marks; analyzing bullets, gunpowder residue and serial numbers; extracting evidence from shoe and tire marks and other impressions; collecting, preserving and analyzing residues, minute particles and other impressions as evidence.
Lesson 12: Fingerprints; Document Examination
The three classes of fingerprints as defined by patterns of loops, whirls and arches; the automated fingerprint identification system; methods used to detect fingerprints; techniques for preserving fingerprints; document and voice examination; handwriting analysis and comparisons; methods used to compare copiers, printers and fax machines; analyzing alterations, erasures and virtual obliteration of documents; analyzing voice data with the sound spectrograph.
Lesson 13: Forensic Science Today and Tomorrow
The impact of the Internet on forensic science; global networks and databases; researching forensic science on the Web; the Internet as a research tool in criminal investigations; the future of forensic science; the broadening applications of forensic methodology as an integral component of investigation.