Forensics body farm

By Lizzy Petersen

Photo of Kaden Nelson working on lab report taken by Lizzy Petersen

Owasso’s Forensics Science class does many unique labs throughout the school year; they just recently completed their “Body Farm” lab. The lab is designed for students to see the different sizes of maggots that consume the “dying” body in different climates. By examining the sizes of the maggots, the students are able to determine how long the body may have been deceased, also referred to as the PMI (post-mortem interval). 

For obvious reasons, the school cannot use real decomposing bodies, so the forensics teachers, Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Cianco, replicate the process by using raw chicken parts. 

Mrs. Martin mentions, “It would be nice to use other animals, maybe even pigs.”

Mrs. Martin typically tweaks the lab each year to be more applicable to the new class. She hopes that in future years, she will come up with more ideas to make the assignment better. 

This method of study and theory is very well known within the forensic science community. The process is easy for people to document and is very helpful in the field. 

Mrs. Martin confidently shares, “This assignment prepares my students in many different ways.”

She elaborates that death is always around, and students becoming more comfortable around it makes them better prepared for future jobs and life in general. Even the local police are able to utilize this type of observational knowledge on crime scenes in the area.

By becoming more comfortable handling death, the students may then realize this is or is not the career path for them. This lab helps that process since students are asked to look through the medical examiner’s perspective. They take on that role in this assignment and determine the cause of death and manner. By examining the life cycle of the maggots on the dead body, they are then able to determine how long the body may have been dead. 

This lab was very hands-on, and all students were required to participate. They would examine the maggot sizes, record the weather and temperature of the environment, collect data and store them in alcohol. 

Senior Tori Hankins was not the most fond of this assignment and shared that “It was gross and smelled bad.”

This was the average feeling for this assignment. Most high school students do not typically want to spend their class time examining raw decaying chicken and having to watch maggots eat it. 

However, Mrs. Martin mentions, “I always have a good amount of students that really get into this lab.”

Mrs. Martin has numerous labs throughout the school year similar to this to prepare the students for their end-of-the-year project, where they examine a crime scene from start to finish. Some labs are more “gross” than others, but all end up being extraordinarily memorable.