Junior Girl Scouts go CSI

Friday, October 31, 2008 3:05 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend |

By Shavonne Potts

Salisbury Post

Gil Grissom would be proud of a group of Junior Girl Scouts collecting fingerprints and evidence as they learned about crime scene investigation.

The 43 Scouts weren't auditioning for the latest episode of the television series, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," but earning their badges.

"It's designed to get more girls involved in science and engineer fields," said Troop Leader Tanya Fiello.

Fiello is leader of troop 3566. She's also on the district team and is a junior-age-level consultant who plans events for juniors and mentors new troop leaders.

Fiello explained that the Junior Scouts don't really have in-depth science activities for the girls, who are in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

"We want them to find it fascinating to learn about it," she said.

This is the first troop badge of its kind. There are already science badges, but nothing of this caliber and that deals with DNA and fingerprinting.

The girls represent various Rowan County troops including 543, 1109, 3563, 3566, 743, 456, 1938 and 251. Girls ages 8 to 12 worked with Kenny Lane, who is the crime scene investigator with the Salisbury Police Department, and Tabelech Shipp, founder of MYGEMS Science Center in Concord.

St. Paul's Lutheran Church hosted the Saturday event.

The girls measured bones to determine the age and height of a person, Fiello said.

With outstretched arms, the girls measured their wingspan or the distance from the tip of one middle finger to the tip of the other, in order to determine their height.

Lane also had the group collect fingerprints from soda cans.

He also showed them how to find traces of blood at a crime scene using luminol, a chemical substance that shows blood invisible to the naked eye.

"He went to the hospital, had his own blood drawn," Fiello said of Lane's experiment.

Using his own blood, Lane smeared some of it on a tile. Then he cleaned it off. He asked the Scouts if they thought the blood would reappear. They said no, but using the chemical, the investigator showed them the blood was still there.

The scouts also conducted a handwriting analysis, which they found the most fun, Fiello said.

MYGEMS Science Center in Concord is a science educational organization, founded in 2001 with the purpose that "all children could learn to love science," according to its Web site.

MYGEMS stands for Multicultural Youth Gaining Empowerment through Motivation and Success with Science.

Shipp is a former science teacher who Fielllo said also does after-school tutoring, helps students with their science fair projects and hosts birthday parties at the center.

Tanya contacted Shipp last year around February or March.

In addition to the Junior Scouts who participated, there were also rising Brownie Scouts who earned badges as part of their bridging activity with a Junior Scout.

At the end of year, the Scouts will be eligible for the outstanding troop award.

The last time the group gathered, they earned their fun patch at Patterson Farm.

For more information about MYGEMS, visit the Web site at www.mygemsforkids.com

Contact Shavonne Potts at 704-797-4253 or spotts@salisburypost.com.