by Reuben J. (11th Grade)

This past year, I and the other junior, Joanna, have been taking an online forensic science class. Forensic science, or criminalistics, covers the disciplines related to studying and analyzing evidence found at crime scenes, like bloodstains or fingerprints. Though I don’t expect it will be very relevant in any future career I pursue, it has proved quite engaging. For instance, we recently had to grow a couple dozen maggots into flies, which was simultaneously disgusting and intriguing. The maggots wriggled around and even escaped from their container once, though they didn’t make it very far; as our teacher noted, they didn’t seem to have much of a plan. Once the flies were grown, we froze some of them to study. The rest were fed to a pet lizard, a fitting end to their short lives.