This video starts out by defining the term forensic science and goes into a basic outline of what professionals in the forensic science field do. It details the major fields that professionals in this field focus on. It talks about how professionals specialize and are not trained to work on all aspects of forensic investigation. This is a good video to watch to get a general overview of forensic science and its major components.
Forensic Science Services
This video shows a newscast that goes behind the scenes of a real forensics team. It shows various activities of the forensics team like fingerprinting and matching shoeprints. It even includes a quick mention of the future of forensic science services.
How To Become A Forensic Scientist
Don’t be misled by the title of this video. It talks about the most glaring inaccuracies in media portrayals of forensic scientists including how forensic science is divided into multiple disciplines and one person won’t work in all disciplines like you might see on TV. It also helps you to understand the difference between forensic scientists and crime scene investigators. Also contrary to what you might see on TV, forensic scientists typically do not venture out into the field. They do their work in labs instead. This is a quick video but it does help you to better understand the reality of forensic science work.
Forensic Science – Toxicology And Drugs
This video explains the goals of forensic toxicology. It goes into detail about several drugs that forensic toxicologists are likely to come into contact with and that they will have to identify. Most of this video talks about these common drug types.
Forensic Science Field Techniques – Decomposition Timeline
Before you watch this video you should know that it shows actual decomposition of a pig and discusses what happens as decomposition happens. It talks about how the bacteria in the human body will become more active without the immune system to keep them in check and that the skin will become looser at some point and may start slipping off of the body a little. This video may be a bit graphic for anyone who doesn’t want to see decomposition taking place or who doesn’t want to hear the gory details but knowing the stages of decomposition is a vital part of forensic science. It can help forensic scientists to know approximately how long it has been since a person passed away.
Forensic Science Discovery And Recovery
This video shows forensic science students working on staged crime scenes to learn how to process real ones. The narrator runs through some of the things that the students are looking for in these crime scenes and how they must handle the evidence for it to be useful to an investigation. Students also learn about archaeology for proper removal of bones from the ground and about entomology for the observation of insect activity in and on dead bodies.
Tom Rheinecker enjoys answering questions students may have about various forensic science technician schools.