Enhancing Hidden Details

In this lesson, learners use a Web-based customized version of ImageJ to investigate the properties of digital images as they relate to forensic science. Several images are taken from criminal evidence (ATM documents, license plates, etc.), but require image enhancement to reveal full detail. A set of micrographs of hair samples is also provided, and, after classifying and measuring the samples, students are able to identify the suspect most likely to have been at the crime scene. 

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Relevant standard(s)

NSES Standard: Science as Inquiry, Grades 5-8, Content Standard A
• USE APPROPRIATE TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES TO GATHER, ANALYZE, AND INTERPRET DATA: The use of tools and techniques, including mathematics, will be guided by the question asked and the investigations students design. The use of computers for the collection, summary, and display of evidence is part of this standard. Students should be able to access, gather, store, retrieve, and organize data, using hardware and software designed for these purposes.

NSES Standard: Science and Technology in Society, Grades 5-8, Content Standard E
• Science and technology are reciprocal. Science helps drive technology, as it addresses questions that demand more sophisticated instruments and provides principles for better instrumentation and technique. Technology is essential to science, because it provides instruments and techniques that enable observations of objects and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due to factors such as quantity, distance, location, size, and speed. Technology also provides tools for investigations, inquiry, and analysis.

NSES Standard: Science in Personal and Social Perspective, Grades 5-8, Content Standard F
• Societal challenges often inspire questions for scientific research, and social priorities often influence research priorities through the availability of funding for research.

NCTM Standard: Number and Operations, Grades 6-8
Instructional programs should enable students to understand numbers, ways of representing numbers, relationships among numbers, and number systems
• understand and use ratios and proportions to represent quantitative relationships.

NETS Standard: Grades 6-8
• Use content-specific tools, software, and simulations (e.g., environmental probes, graphing calculators, exploratory environments, Web tools) to support learning and research.