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Sullivan Forensic Students Investigate 'Crime'

Students in the after-school program at Sullivan School help Officer David Lemieux look for evidence at a 'crime scene' near the school.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Sullivan forensic science students took their knowledge into the field and investigated a "crime scene."

The incident happened when these things often do — on a beautiful Monday afternoon at Sullivan School.

James Holmes' forensics after-school program waited in the cafeteria for Police Director Michael Cozzaglio, who was to give a presentation on police procedures. Then the day took a sudden turn when a strange nameless man bolted out of the woods proclaiming that he found bones and a bloody shirt.

Luckily, Officer David Lemieux was in the area and, upon arriving, instantly began asking the students what the strange man looked like. After finding that the students knew a thing or two about forensic science, he asked for some help and brought the students down to the crime scene with police tape and evidence markers.    

Of course, the "crime scene" was staged for the purpose of the program but with the students' focus, one could have difficulty  figuring this out.

The children intensely scanned the marked-off area for more evidence and separated anything strange they found into evidence bags.  

Lemieux said the hands-on experience can really open up the door for a lot of students who may have a limited view on how vast the field of science and its applications actually are.

"I think a lot of kids want to actually get into this field so I think it is something that can get them into it early on," Lemieux said. "They might want to do something like this someday."

The students tiptoed around the evidence and used the proper walking technique in the crime scene so they did not disturb any unfound evidence. They drew maps of the crime scene, took careful notes, and took pictures of the evidence with the understanding that next week they will have to analyze everything and solve the mystery.

Lemieux said forensics is a lot harder than it looks on television, and it is important for students to comprehend the reality of it and the scientific reasoning and procedures it so strictly adheres to.

He added that the students also pick up good eyewitness skills that often are hard to come by in the field.

"If they were to actually see something like crime they have the ... skills to be a good eyewitness, you really don't see it all of the time," he said. "But when you do it all of the time you learn and pick up those key eyewitness skills."

Holmes has made an effort to bring more police into the classroom and he said with the help of Cozzaglio, Mayor Richard Alcombright, and Superintendent of Schools James Montepare, he has been able to run various programs that not only educate students, but familiarize them with their local police officers.

"They are having a positive interaction with the police, and I can't say enough great things about the department," Holmes said. "They go out of their way to work with these kids."

Amphibious Toads Procreate in Perplexing Amplexus

By Tor HanseniBerkshires columnist
08:09PM / Sunday, May 05, 2024

 

Toads lay their eggs in the spring along the edges of waterways. Photos by Tor Hansen.

My first impressions of toads came about when my father Len Hansen rented a seaside house high on a sand dune in North Truro, Cape Cod back in 1954. 

 

With Cape Cod Bay stretching out to the west, and Twinefield so abundant in wildflowers to the east, North Truro became a naturalist's dream, where I could search for sea shells at the seashore, or chase beetles and butterflies with my trusty green butterfly net. 

 

Twinefield was a treasure trove for wildlife — a vast glacial rolling sandplain shaped by successive glaciers, its sandy soil rich in silicon, thus able to stimulate growth for a diverse biota. A place where in successive years I would expand my insect collection to fill cigar boxes with every order of insects abounding in beach plum, ox-eye daisy and milkweed. During our brief summer vacation there, we boys would exclaim in our excitement, "Oh here is another hoppy toad," one of many Fowler's toads (Bufo woodhousei fowleri ) that inhabited the moist surroundings, at home in the Ammophyla beach grass, thickets of beach plum, bayberry, and black cherry bushes. 

 

They sparkled in rich colors of green amber on beige and reddish tinted warts. Most anurans have those glistening eyes, gold on black irises so beguiling around the dark pupils. Today I reflect on a favorite analogy, the riveting eye suggests a solar eclipse in pictorial aura.

 

In the distinct toad majority in the Outer Cape, Fowler's toads turned up in the most unusual of places. When we Hansens first moved in to rent Riding Lights, we would wash the sand and salt from our feet in the outdoor shower where toads would be drinking and basking in the moisture near my feet. As dusk fades into darkness, the happy surprise would gather under the night lights where moths were fluttering about the front door and the toads would snatch bugs with outstretched tongue.

 

In later years, mother Eleanor added much needed color and variety to Grace's original garden. Our smallest and perhaps most acrobatic butterflies are the skippers, flitting and somersaulting to alight and drink heartily the nectar abounding at yellow sickle-leaved coreopsis and succulent pink live forever sedums of autumn. These hearty late bloomers signaled oases for many fall migrants including painted ladies, red admirals and of course monarchs on there odyssey to over-winter in Mexico. 

 

Our newly found next-door neighbors, the Bergmarks, added a lot to share our zeal for this undiscovered country, and while still in our teens, Billy Atwood, who today is a nuclear physicist in California, suggested we should include the Baltimore checkerspot in our survey, as he too had a keen interest in insects. Still unfamiliar to me then, in later years I would come across a thriving colony in Twinefield, that yielded a rare phenotype checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton p. superba) that I wrote about featured in The Cape Naturalist ( Museum of Natural History, Brewster Cape Cod 1991).