School Environment
Approximately 1200 students attend Oak Grove High School, located in south San José, California. It is one of eleven traditional high schools in the East Side Union High School District, which also includes seven alternative education high schools and an Adult Education Program (AEP). Students who attend Oak Grove High School represent diverse socio-economic, racial and ethnic, and social groups. Approximately 53% of students at Oak Grove High School qualify for California’s Free and Reduced Lunch status, based on income eligibility. According to our registrar’s demographic records, the three most represented racial groups are Hispanic, Asian, and White. Among these racial groups, the most common ethnic groups are Mexican and Vietnamese.
Students in my forensics class are reflective of the general ethnic population of the school and they come from a variety of academic achievement levels. Although Forensics is a rigorous course for which students should have completed both biology and chemistry with passing grades, several of my students have struggled in both subjects. Despite many of my students not having the expected background for a demanding course, I find that teaching Forensics serves a unique opportunity to repair the damaged egos from past academic failures. Calculating time of death is more interesting to many students than solving linear algebra problems. Explaining the progression of insects that decompose corpses can be more exciting than reciting definitions. Composing an evidence report establishes a mode of documentation essential to real-world writing, rather than for the sake of practice. Forensics provides a scaffold by which I find the intersections of chemistry, physics, and biology in a thoroughly integrated context that incorporates math, oral expression, literacy, writing, creativity, and critical thinking. The curricular unit proposed in this text focuses on learning about insects within the context of forensics for students in grades 10-12, although adaptable to other levels.
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