42 SCIENCE SCOPE
CSI web adventures:
A forensics virtual
apprenticeship for
teaching science and
inspiring STEM careers
by Leslie Miller, Ching-I Chang, and
Daniel Hoyt
CSI: The Experience, a traveling museum exhibit and
a companion web adventure, was created through
a grant from the National Science Foundation as a
potential model for informal learning; however, the
response from teachers who incorporate a forensics
unit into their science curriculum or teach a foren-
sics class has indicated a place for this website in the
classroom setting. The website was designed to en-
rich and complement the exhibit by modeling the fo-
rensic process. Both the website and the physical ex-
hibit leverage the popularity of the CSI (Crime Scene
Investigation) television shows to “create interesting,
realistic contexts that encourage the active construc-
tion of knowledge by learners” (CTGV 1993, p. 52).
Forensic professionals, museum personnel, and edu-
cators collaborated to produce these informal learn-
ing environments. The popular CBS television series
provided the hook for engagement and many of the
realistic art assets, such as short video clips and pho-
tos of the TV characters and lab equipment.
The website, http://forensics.rice.edu, available in
both Spanish and English, ser ves a heterogeneous
audience—game players of all ages, students, teach-
ers, families, and CSI fans. (See Figure 1 for the home
page.) Observation of one of three crime scenes and
analysis of evidence is part of the museum exhibit.
The web adventure mimics this scenario by of fering
additional cases to solve, but through the virtual world.
As a player, you collect evidence from a crime scene,
question suspects, analyze each piece of evidence, and
present your findings. As the designers, we integrated
substantive science, real-world lab techniques, and
higher-level thinking skills to create a forensic virtual
apprenticeship that would inspire science careers. The
result is a website that is used by thousands of informal
CSI: The Experience
http://forensics.rice.edu
FIGURE 1
learners around the world and by many science class-
rooms. By way of supporting material, there is a guide
for at-home activities titled Family Forensics, that can
be downloaded from the website (http://forensics.rice.
edu/html/famguide.html) (Figure 2) and a set of online
short interactives, called Fun Stuff, that test powers of
observation and other forensic skills (http://forensics.
rice.edu/html/funstuff.html).
Three science instructional goals guided the design
of CSI: The Experience Web Adventures. The first goal
was to present substantive and engaging science. We
wanted to ensure that players not only learn strategies
for solving the mystery, but also fully appreciate the un-
derlying science of different forensic disciplines such
as DNA analysis, toxicology, firearms and toolmark
identification, and postmortem medical examination.
The player explores these forensic specialties in the
first case, Rookie Training. As players complete train-
ing segments, they earn tools (swabs, magnifying
glass, tweezers, and pipette) as part of their field kit.
With the target audience of adolescents in mind, the
cases are scaffolded in terms of complexity and applica-
tion of science knowledge. In other words, we did not
feel it wise to ask players to do a toxicology test when
they had no concept of what that analysis required or
even what the field of toxicology involved. Therefore,
the total e-learning environment starts with training
(see Figure 3). This purposely precedes Case Two:
Canine Caper and Case Three: Burning Star. These
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