C.S.I. Columbia Road: School kids will get trained in forensics

Sixth-grade Students at Dorchester’s Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School are going to use more than a textbook during this year’s science classes.

The Columbia Road school recently announced a new partnership with Science from Scientists, a Boston-based educational non-profit that seeks to inspire future scientists by sending experts into the classroom to give students a chance to learn from the professionals. The program will take the place of a science class every week and will focus on teaching students the finer points of crime scene investigation and forensics.

Frederick School principal DaQuall Graham said the program is particularly useful for the school’s sixth graders, whose syllabus mixes mathematics and science into a single course. Graham said the decision was also guided by a recent Harvard educational study that identified female middle schoolers of color as being largely unengaged by traditional science curriculums.

 “Our mission is to take learning beyond the school walls, sometimes that means bringing the outside world into the school,” Graham said. “We want to show kids that it doesn’t matter what their gender or background is, we want to show them science is for everyone.”

Graham said the program’s focus on forensics is in part due to the ongoing popularity of crime procedurals like C.S.I. and a growing number of criminal justice programs offered at Boston-area colleges and universities. Most importantly though, Graham said he hopes the program will give kids a better understanding of how textbooks and tests translate to life after graduation.

“Kids are into that kind of investigative learning, a program like this gets our kids thinking about science and math and how it is applied in the real world,”
 he said.       
 
The Science from Scientists program was first brought to Graham’s attention by District 7 city councillor Tito Jackson, who hopes other schools will join the program.

“This is going to be an amazing addition to the options schools have this year,” Jackson said. “It’s an opportunity for young kids to get excited about the future, to learn from actual scientists.”

Science from Scientists is directed by Erika Angle and has close ties with Massachusetts-based technology firm iRobot, and Jackson said that while improving academic opportunities for students was the main incentive for supporting the program, he hopes it will be a first step towards a relationship between the company and Dorchester.

“We have now a great group of people who may not have had a connection with District 7 before,” Jackson said. “Now we have them paying attention, they’re really showing a lot of love for District 7.”


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