Hair and Fiber Analysis

Purpose:

The purpose of the Hair and Fiber Analysis Lab is to learn how to use a microscope to decipher unique details on hair and fibers to prepare us for our crime scene final exam. This improves our problem solving skills and logical reasoning to create a reasonable crime scene conclusion and reconstruction aiding us while identifying victims and perpetrators.

Materials:

- Strand of hair with follicle

- Animal hair/fur with follicle

- Denim

- Nylon

- Polyester

- Acetate

- Cotton

- Microscope

- Custom Microscope slides

Procedure:

Clean a microscope slide and cover
Take one of the hairs or fibers and place on wet microscope slide
Place a microscope slide cover on top of the hair or fiber with attention to putting it over the follicle, pushing the water out leaving a tight seal
Place slide under microscope
Turn on the microscope and observe
Take a picture of the follicle and or the main part of the fiber
Repeat steps 1-6 for every fiber and hair

Observations:

If you don't clean the slide it obstructs the view of the specimen by a lot
Make sure to have it in a puddle and not wet in some spots dry in others as it has a better view
Make sure the water makes a clean seal and make sure the follicle is under the cover slide because the follicle is an important detail to observe
Don't be rough as you can mess up your placement of the hair or fiber
Observe the whole hair or fiber not just one part because you can find interesting things throughout it.
Don't hold the camera right at the eyepiece hold it back a little to get a full image

Data Collection:

Abby's Follicle (Human)

Benny's Follicle (Cat)

Cory's Follicle (Human)

Minerva's Follicle (Cat)

Spencer's Follicle (Human)

Acetate (Fiber)

Denim (Fiber)

Nylon (Fiber)

Polyester (Fiber)

Cotton (Fiber)

Conclusion:

In this lab I recalled my understanding of biology and chemistry to properly utilize a microscope and use it to its full extent so I can fully analyse all of the hairs and fibers. After going over all of my hairs and fibers I was able to look at the photos I took to find similarities and differences between the hairs and fibers. Human hairs have thicker wider follicles whereas animal follicles are thinner, fibers are all woven in different ways which is apparent by the strands.

Reflection:

This lab was really fun! It was quick and fairly easy, the only difficulty I ran into was taking photos through the microscope, I had a hard time making it perfect and it would show on some of my pictures would have weird lighting. All in all this lab was very beneficial for my learning so I can perform better for the crime scene final exam in the coming week.

Lab Sheets:

CSI Forensic Techniques - Hair & Fiber Analysis.pdf

Lab sheet for the experiment

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