Disturbing! What Kids Saw On Their Field Trip...

[mattm04]

Forensics classes are all the rage these days. Most of the high schools in my area offer them and a local university has started up its own body farm.

I'm not sure how many offer them today in my area, but back in 03 or 04 either CBS, NBC or ABC did a story on the nightly news about HS forensic and shot it at my school. Apparently we were one of the earliest schools to offer it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I wish those had been available when I was at school; I would have so signed up.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I wish those had been available when I was at school; I would have so signed up.

Me too. We didn't have those back at my school during the 80's.

I missed out on a lot.

[bhskittykatt]

This reminds me of something I read somewhere....aha, here it is: http://www.snopes.com/college/medical/cadaver.asp

I think the field trip was legit, given the subject of forensics. Not a fun thing to discover on the trip, though. I'd be really upset if I was in that situation.

Well............ok then.

Back in my day we studied Latin and Botany.I had no idea children nowadays study forensics and medicals. I am so far behind the times.

We had Forensics the last two years I was in high school. Came to school once to see tire tracks through the flower beds, crushed flowers, and crime scene tape all over for their mock-crime scene. I'm sure the school gardener just LOVED that class (On the flip side, we never had Latin or Botany...)

[fireheart]

What the heck is a body farm?! O.o

And on that note, the ONLY forensics we got to do in high school was a one-day field trip to the local university to participate in "Chemical Murder Mystery."

We were meant to start with a lecture about forensics at the uni when a "detective" broke in saying that a crime had been committed and we were to proceed to the scene of the crime. From there, we split into groups and learned different methods of testing forensic data. At the end of the day we gave a presentation and looked at what we believed was the culprit.

[telecom_goddess]

I gotta second that...BODY FARM??? I have this image of bodies just sticking up in rows like zombies

As for me I would never want to go to a morgue on a field trip of any kind...I did everything in my power to avoid taking biology in high school cause I didn't want to dissect anything.

[Gawdzillers]

What the heck is a body farm?! O.o

I'm no expert, but from what I know, it's a facility where the decomposition of the human body can be studied. At UT Knoxville, it's a large wooded area, and cadavers are placed at different locations and exposed in different ways to study the effects of sunlight, precipitation, insect life, etc. on human decomposition. People mostly donate their bodies to the farm, though some are people who were simply not claimed at the morgue. Body farms are used by anthropology/forensics students at 5 different colleges in the US, as well as by local police for training purposes.

Calling them "body farms" makes it sound pretty weird, but they're actually quite interesting and useful.

[telecom_goddess]

ugh....I have heard of those now that I think about it.

I was reading the article and I find it a bit creepy that this was a forensics CLUB. Yeesh.

I'm the kind of person who would never work in the medical examiner/funeral industry ...I don't care how much it paid......

[Antisocial_Worker]

I'm no expert, but from what I know, it's a facility where the decomposition of the human body can be studied. At UT Knoxville...

The one at the University of Tennessee is the first and largest, and flung the entire field of forensic science decades ahead in terms of the good its done. The nearest body farm to me is the one at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, about 60 miles west of where I am. I've also heard of a "body ranch" being established somewhere in Texas.

Bill Bass, founder of the body farm at UT, says that ideally similar research facilities would be established in all the major climate zones of the US to study how bodies decay in a hot, dry environment such as the Southwest, or a relatively cool, dry environment such as Montana, or in temperate zones such as the Northeast or Alaska that get a lot more exposure to cold temperatures than the Southeast does, not to mention swampy areas such as Louisiana or South Florida. Having one in Western North Carolina, which is only about ten degrees cooler on average than Knoxville, and which has an identically forested terrain serves no purpose other than convenience for the students at WCU who don't want to bother going all the way to Knoxville constantly.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I know of body farms... from Cracked. Scroll down to the bottom; the body farm is number one.

http://www.cracked.com/article/171_6...ue-part-321_p2

[BookstoreEscapee]

Damn you and your Cracked links!

You won't see much mention of this on CSI since it would take away from the usual 30-minutes devoted to David Caruso putting on and/or removing his sunglasses,

It wasn't CSI but they did use a body farm on one of the crime shows (Criminal Minds, maybe? I don't remember).