Science Detective uses topics and skills drawn from national science standards to prepare your child for more advanced science courses and new assessments that measure reasoning, reading comprehension, and writing in science. Grades 3-4.

Do you have what it takes to become a science sleuth? Of course you do! Discover how to gather clues and collect evidence to catch a thief, follow instructions to extract DNA from strawberries, take your own fingerprints, analyze handwriting, and much more. While you're having fun inspecting, detecting, and experimenting, you'll be learning all about the intriguing world of forensic science and its important role in real life.

Watch the excitement ripple through your classroom as students use their intellect to find out who committed the "crime" at your school. Enliven your students as they practice critical thinking skills. Students are often taught skills such as the scientific method, scientific research, critical thinking, making observations, analyzing facts, and drawing conclusions in isolation. Studying forensic science allows students to practice these skills and see theories put into practice by using circumstances that model real-life events, meanwhile letting students explore a variety of career options. This exciting unit includes: background information on forensics, exploration of careers in forensic science and law enforcement, a simulation involving a fire in the school library, and instructions for writing your own crime scene simulation. To crack the case, students examine evidence left at the scene, interview suspects (staff members), and use critical thinking to connect all of the clues and eliminate suspects. Students will feel like real investigators with this true-to-life simulation. Let your students solve more mysteries with Mystery Disease, Mystery Science, Detective Club, and The Great Chocolate Caper. Grades 5-8

Meet Frank Runtime. Disgraced ex-detective. Hard-boiled private eye. Search expert. When a robbery hits police headquarters, it’s up to Frank Runtime and his extensive search skills to catch the culprits. In this detective story, you’ll learn how to use algorithmic tools to solve the case. Runtime scours smugglers’ boats with binary search, tails spies with a search tree, escapes a prison with depth-first search, and picks locks with priority queues. Joined by know-it-all rookie Officer Notation and inept tag-along Socks, he follows a series of leads in a best-first search that unravels a deep conspiracy. Each chapter introduces a thrilling twist matched with a new algorithmic concept, ending with a technical recap. Perfect for computer science students and amateur sleuths alike, The CS Detective adds an entertaining twist to learning algorithms. Follow Frank’s mission and learn: –The algorithms behind best-first and depth-first search, iterative deepening, parallelizing, binary search, and more –Basic computational concepts like strings, arrays, stacks, and queues –How to adapt search algorithms to unusual data structures –The most efficient algorithms to use in a given situation, and when to apply common-sense heuristic methods

Standards-based higher-order activities develop analysis, synthesis, and vocabulary skills reguired for exceptional reading comprehension.

Sets out to introduce non-scientists to the techniques of modern forensic science.