Animal Hair Evidence Lesson: Slides, Notes, Lab, Review

Description

Learn animal hair forensics! This resource is designed to teach the basics of animal hair identification. Students will review the structure of hair, learn the three common cuticle patterns, and the five most common medulla patterns. This gives them the vocabulary to describe and differentiate between the hairs of cats, dogs, deer, rodents and rabbits.

The Animal Hair Lab guides students to observe actual slides of these same five animals, plus any additional animal hair samples your students bring to class! The Lab also includes an ‘Unknown’ hair sample that students must identify.

Included in this Animal Hair Forensics resource:

Interactive Google Slide set for learning and instructions for the Lab. Interactive slides invite students to move objects, drag and drop, label and interact with the content on the slides. This keeps students engaged and, since it is student led, you are free to help the kids who need you. Slides can also be used for direct instruction if desired, or as a mix of both.
Student Notes Sheet: everything students need to complete the notes is included in the Slides
Key for Notes Sheet
Student Lab Sheet
Google Form Review: 10 multiple choice questions
Teaching Guide with complete instructions for setting up the lab, along with time savers and ideas to make the lesson easier on you!

Materials Needed for the Lab:

Microscopes
Slides
Clear nail polish
Clear tape
Animal hairs! dogs, cats, deer, rabbits, rodents, etc (donated by students in the class)

While not absolutely necessary, it is assumed that students have already been introduced to human hair as evidence, and are familiar with the basics of human hair in order to compare it to animal hair. Check out the Human Hair Evidence resource if you need a way to teach the subject!

Click HERE to see the full Pacing Guide and know how this resource fits into the whole Forensic Science Curriculum.

Click here to see a preview of the Animal Hair Evidence resource!

Here is what some happy teachers are saying about this resource in our Teachers Pay Teachers store!

It’s a good resource. It’s editable and covers what I need it to cover. – Mrs M

Thank you! This worked well kind of like a virtual lab. We also had students bring animal hair samples from home that we could then look at with our microscopes. – Amanda C.

Used this while I was out on field trips and pulled for testing to help with introducing hair. Was easy for students to follow and the GoogleSlides were so helpful with lots of information. – Madison H.

Currently available in the Trace Evidence Unit: