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Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling


Based on the details of the Diablo Highway crime scene, in this DNA Profiling Lab, students learn about the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule and how the genes in this structure govern the full spectrum of life for an individual including growth, development, functioning and reproduction.


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SKU: DH-5003-6D Category:
Based on the details of the Diablo Highway crime scene, students learn about the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule and how the genes in this structure govern the full spectrum of life for an individual including growth, development, functioning and reproduction. Students learn how about the FBI CODIS used to identify individuals, how a DNA barcode pattern is generated and how to interpret an electropherogram DNA profile. This activity includes all the tools teachers and students will need to conduct this lab including:
  • Teacher’s Guide
  • One copymaster Student’s Guide
  • One copymaster “Story of the Crime” booklet
  • One copymaster of the Control/Evidence Sheets
  • Access to the Online 3D Evidence Viewer
The Student’s Guide includes:
  • Clearly written, graphically-rich, easy-to-understand science lesson on DNA Profiling
  • Easy-to-follow procedures for the lab activities
  • Answer tables for the students to record their results and submit
The Teacher’s Guide includes:
  • Everything included in the Student Guide
  • The answer key
  • DNA Profiling Lab 1 – Match Control Sample With Crime Scene Evidence – estimated time to complete – one 45-minute class/lab period
  • DNA barcodes – Control
  • DNA barcodes – Evidence

Since their release in 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have helped states and school districts in the U.S. to increase student engagement with natural scientific phenomenon at the nexus of three dimensions of learning; Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts.

The challenge for educators is how to present fun and engaging science lab activities that help their students achieve the objectives outlined in the NGSS. Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling is such a lab activity.


Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling strongly supports the first dimension in learning specified in the NGSS - Science and Engineering Practices. The eight Science and Engineering Practices identified in the NGSS framework as essential for all students to learn are listed below followed by the specific way in which Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling supports and promotes this practice:
  1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering) – The essential question for students conducting the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling Lab activity is Who committed the crime? In order to answer that question, the students must ask themselves: How can I determine who committed the crime? and then through a series of lessons and lab activities they learn the science, apply the science, gather and interpret data and come to a reasoned determination based on evidence. In Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling, the questions arise from the need to solve a problem.
  2. Developing and using models – One of the key models used by students in Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling is the crime scene map. All the evidence is mapped here which forms the basis for the student's investigation and their resulting determinations. According to the NGSS, a diagram is considered a model. This model can show relationships among variables. In a simple example, what is the relationship between a sample of DNA evidence belonging to one of the victims and the location in which it was found?
  3. Planning and carrying out investigations – There is a fully immersive lab activity in the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab. Teachers can choose to have students work individually or in groups to encourage collaborative problem-solving.
  4. Analyzing and interpreting data – In all of the Diablo Highway labs, and in the DNA Profiling Lab in particular, students gather data in the course of their investigation, analyze it and interpret their data. This interpretation becomes the raw material in constructing the narrative of the crime and, ultimately, the arrival at a determination as to who may have committed this crime and how.
  5. Using mathematics and computational thinking – In the Diablo Highway Crime Scene Mapping Lab, (not included with DNA Profiling Lab) students measure three-dimensional space and create an accurate model to represent this space.
  6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering) – At the conclusion of the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab, many teachers ask their students to write a report summarizing the results of their investigation including the evidence to support their determinations.
  8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information – In the DNA Profiling Lab, and throughout all nine of the lab activities in Diablo Highway, students evaluate the evidence from the crime scene, analyze this evidence in the lab and communicate and record this data. Later this data is compared with data from the control samples and a determination is made as to whom the DNA evidence may have originated.
  1. The Story of the Crime
  2. Crime Scene Mapping
  3. Blood Typing - PS1.2: Chemical Reactions
  4. Hair Analysis
  5. Fingerprint Analysis
  9. Fiber Analysis
  10. Firearms Identification - PS2.1: Forces and Motion
  1. Help students better understand core ideas in science and engineering
  2. Help students better understand science and engineering practices
  4. Extend their growth in complexity and sophistication across the grades
  5. Can provide a common vocabulary for science and engineering
  6. Are for all students
The NGSS Framework identifies seven crosscutting concepts that bridge disciplinary boundaries. Two of these crosscutting concepts in particular are strongly reinforced in the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab.
  1. Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation
  2. Systems and System Models

1. Crosscutting Concepts - Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation

  1. The Story of the Crime
  2. Crime Scene Mapping
  3. Blood Typing
  4. Hair Analysis
  5. Fingerprint Analysis
  6. DNA Profiling
  7. Shoe Impressions
  8. Tire Impressions
  9. Fiber Analysis
  10. Firearms Identification
Conducting these activities in the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab enables students to address the next two questions outlined the the NGSS crosscutting concept of Cause and Effect: moving from How did that happen? toward What mechanisms caused that to happen? and What conditions were critical for that to happen? As specified in the NGSS, for students, the very act of carrying out an investigation, which is the central focus of the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab activities, addresses the core of the crosscutting concept of Cause and Effect.

2. Crosscutting Concepts - Systems and System Models

The NGSS defines Systems and System Models as: “Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.” Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling reinforces the crosscutting concept of Systems and System Models. In the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab, the crime scene map becomes an essential model throughout the activity and particularly when students must “Construct and present arguments using evidence to support the claim.” This map supports the following notion articulated in the NGSS:
Scientific Investigations Use a Variety of Methods
Diablo Highway students use a variety of methods in the lab activities. In the case of the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab, these include observation, critical analysis, data recording and comparative analysis.
Scientific Knowledge is Based on Empirical Evidence
In the Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab, students conduct close analyses and interpretation of data for the DNA evidence and the control samples and accurately record their findings. The students’ determinations as to whom a piece of evidence might be associated with and ultimately who may have committed the crime are based on and supported by evidence – not speculation. In short, students make and defend a claim based on evidence and thereby come to understand the difference between cause and correlation.
Scientific Knowledge is Open to Revision in Light of New Evidence
Scientific Models, Laws, Mechanisms, and Theories Explain Natural Phenomena
Science is a Way of Knowing
Scientific Knowledge Assumes an Order and Consistency in Natural Systems
The forensic science labs conducted by students during this investigation reinforces this notion of an order and consistency in natural systems. Students learn that DNA is different for every individual (unless it's an identical twin!) and that certain genes on the chromosomes that make up DNA govern all the life functions for that individual. This is consistent.
Scientific knowledge is based on the assumption that natural laws operate today as they did in the past and they will continue to do so in the future. (HS-LS4-1),(HSLS4-4)
In Murder at Old Fields students use the modern knowledge, skills and tools of forensic science and apply them to this criminal case from long ago, 1842. During the conduct of the labs, this assumption is affirmatively reinforced repeatedly: that the natural laws that operate today do so as they did in 1842.
Science is a Human Endeavor
Science Addresses Questions About the Natural and Material World




This is a suitable phenomenon in the NGSS framework because the anchoring phenomenon is understandable prior to the investigation. Hazel and Nancy Frome did die in the West Texas desert, this is fact, but the students must further investigate to discover how, why and by whom.














The NGSS recognizes the connection between mathematics and science.






In supporting the NGSS, Diablo Highway therefore also supports these CCSS standards in literacy. Diablo Highway: DNA Profiling lab provides primary written documents as an important basis for the understanding of the crime narrative upon which the science is based. These include source documents such as newspaper articles about the crime, maps and detailed written descriptions of the historical context for the event, the crime scene and the suspects.
