National Standards for Grade Levels 5-8
 
Introduce middle school students to the excitement of forensics with three document analysis experiments. Students perform physical and chemical analyses on a variety of inks and papers using chromatography and microscopy. They analyze documents for authenticity and use an alignment tool to analyze handwriting. Then, they create and retrieve hidden messages, and prepare forged and authenticated documents. Allow three hours for experimentation. Requires microscopes, 100 Watt desk lamps and/ or hot plates, fresh lemon juice, spray starch, newspaper, scissors, water, white paper, and paperclips. Designed for 24 students working in groups of four.