Off the 'Cuff

My relationship with museums, from an educational perspective, has been what I would call a “passionate love affair.”  The reasons I have been working for the Vancouver Police Museum the past three years are significant in my pursuing a career in education. Museums are incredible places where the worlds of both history and education collide [...]

We’ve been so overwhelmed by the popularity of our “Forensics for Adults” workshops that we’ve added another series. On Wednesday nights in June, come to the museum to learn the basics of bloodstain pattern analysis, autopsies and firearms. We’ve also added a new workshop where we’ll be looking at broken glass, frayed rope, tool marks [...]

It’s almost been a year since our last Tweetup; we think it’s definitely time to organize another one. On Wednesday, June 2 from 6:00-9:00PM, you are all invited to the museum and try your hand at a handful of crime-investigating activities, from analyzing blood spatter and bullet evidence to identifying tool marks and foot prints. [...]

One of our most popular workshops last week was our “Forensic Entomology” workshop, where kids got a chance to get up-close-and-personal with blowfly maggots. Before we let our plucky adolescent maggots out into the world, we pulled out the camera and let them be their uninhibited selves. (It’s amazing how uninhibiting Spring Break can be.) [...]

You’ve asked for it, and we’ve (finally) delivered! We are proud to announce our first forensics-themed workshop specifically for adults; our first topic will be forensic pathology, or the study of the causes of death. We will be offering two workshops each Tuesday evening, no matter which workshop you register for, you’ll be able to [...]

Spring Break is just around the corner and here at the Police Museum we are gearing up for another great session of intriguing forensic science workshops. This year we are offering all of last years  favourites  including fingerprints, blood spatter, entomology, ballistics and impression evidence.  All workshops are one hour long and encourage youth to [...]

When a writer is working on the script for the latest episode of CSI, Bones, Dexter or any of the other countless shows that depict forensic science, there comes a point when realism comes second to telling a good story. Although a real investigation and evidence analysis could take weeks or months, the show needs [...]

The sun is shining today, but the weather forecast says it won’t last for long. Luckily for us, we will be hosting an event at Science World which will keep us busy and dry. This weekend (Saturday November 28th and Sunday November 29th) from 11:00am to 3:00pm we will be hosting a drop-in forensic science-themed investigation. [...]

1300 visitors in six days! It blows our mind, thinking about it; we managed to have almost an entire month of people come through the museum in just a week. Spring Break was busy for us, in fact it was easily the busiest the museum has ever been; we ran forensics-themed workshops and our drop-in [...]

WASHINGTON — A congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council finds serious deficiencies in the nation’s forensic science system and calls for major reforms and new research. Rigorous and mandatory certification programs for forensic scientists are currently lacking, the report says, as are strong standards and protocols for analyzing and reporting on evidence.And there [...]