Young Scientists Solve Crime

On August 17th, the DO-IT kids were privileged to attend a chemistry lab on forensic analysis. The lab was conducted by Debbie Tahmassedi. She explained everything very explicitly. She was great.

It was a very interesting study about finding the difference between two kinds of inks, which is sometimes very useful for the investigation of crime. In this lab, the DO-IT kids were told a story about two pen companies, one of which alleged that the other company had stolen its method of manufacturing ink. This case was solved with the practical use of chemistry. Students put a spot of two kinds of inks on two sheets of paper.

The sheets were dipped in beakers of water. After approximately one hour it was noticed that both inks fanned into different shades of colors. It was also noticed that one of the inks spread on the paper further than the other when measured. This demonstrated that both the inks were different types. So it was proven that the allegation was false.

The lab showed that chemistry is a useful subject, not only for this kind of investigation, but in many other fields where scientific methods are used to determine things.