ROGERS — Sixth-grade sleuths at Greer Lingle Middle School put their skills to the test this week in the case of the missing millionaire.
Students in the school’s gifted and talented class staged a crime scene in the library for their peers to tour, and manned classroom stations where they could evaluate clues.
Sixth-graders took impressions from a note left at the scene. They lifted fibers from shirts using tape and tried to draw conclusions. They used chromatography to determine if a brown stain came from a pen or food coloring. There was a litmus paper test on a pair of soft drink cups found near a body outline.
Brandi Kennedy said the powder study — where she used iodine to figure out what was cornstarch and what was baking powder — was “cool.”
The smell station with its cheap cologne didn’t appeal to Lashanda Anady, but she loved looking at fibers, especially when the class got to burn them. Not every fiber burns the same, Lashanda said. One left ashes that looked like a butterfly’s cocoon.
Students were presented with a scenario where they had to solve a murder with limited clues and four suspects who had all left something behind and were all named equally in their millionaire friend’s will.
“The problem-solving aspect of it is so invaluable,” said Tamara Dunn, Lingle science teacher.
Her students studied acids and bases before, but this project required them to gather evidence and make conclusions, both requirements of the Common Core curriculum that rolled out in grades three through eight in Arkansas schools this fall. Sixth grade started out the fall with a mystery-themed unit.
The project brought science to her social studies class, said Terri Langum, a teacher. Students would need every clue to unravel the mystery, she said.
“A lot of them — they’re close,” Langum said.
“I think it’s the dog,” joked Haven Bolerjack, a student.
Gene Poule, one of the suspects, went everywhere with his dog and there was plenty of dog hair at the fiber station, she said.
Anna Thiessen, who played the part of suspect Vera Cruz, thought early on she might be the guilty suspect. Vera’s M&M wrapper decorated the trash can and her name is in a note found at the crime scene.
“Why’d you do it?” a classmate teased Anna late Friday, trying to get her to tell which of the four “suspects” was guilty.
But before the big reveal even Anna didn’t know.
Students whispered their guesses and reviewed their notes while waiting for organizers to reveal which suspect killed the millionaire in hopes of cashing in on his fortune.
Who did it?
Ask a sixth-grader at Lingle because no one else knows.