Tracy Rogers helps junior detectives crack cases at forensics camp

UTM’s Forensic Science Program’s summer camp was featured in Maclean's Magazine. Overseen by professor Tracy Rogers, the camp gives kids the opportunity to discover the world of forensics.

Since she was nine, Monica Lamacchia has wanted to be a detective. “It started when I watched the TV show Forensic Files with my mom. I like how they get all these clues and figure out the scenario,” says Lamacchia, now 11, and going into Grade 6 at St. Francis of Assisi school in Mississauga, Ont. “My mom’s a bookkeeper, but she secretly wants to be a detective, too.” So when Lamacchia read online that the University of Toronto was offering a one-week forensics day camp for kids her age, she talked her parents into letting her go.

She was one of 21 kids who turned up at the Mississauga site last week for their initiation into the forensics world. Over the week, counsellors Tori Berezowski and Daniella Stoewner, both forensic anthropology students at the U of T, covered everything from bullet identification to DNA extraction. Campers learned to dust for fingerprints and collect evidence, and they worked to solve a case.

Read the full story on the Maclean's website >

View the video > Watch out for the bodies: A day at forensics summer camp