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New Zealand Students Study Forensic Biology
About 120 students, at least some of them inspired by American forensic science television shows like CSI, have this year opted to study that paper, in "forensic biology".
About 80 people took the course at the previous school.
The latest annual summer school has itself been a record-breaker, having attracted 2726 enrolments, up about 360 on the previous school's final figure of 2364.
School director Claire Matthewson said the rising roll partly reflected favourable "word of mouth" comment from the growing number of students who had attended earlier courses at the school.
Some students who came from elsewhere in the country, including the North Island, and who had been unable to gain summer holiday work in their home areas, had also decided to head back to Dunedin and undertake further study at the school, she said on Tuesday.
Paul Jarvis (20), an overseas humanities student, from Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, in the United States, said he was impressed by the forensic biology course.
"It's very interesting; it's enjoyable," Mr Jarvis said.
The course is co-ordinated by Prof Jules Kieser, who is also director of the Sir John Walsh Research Institute at the Otago University School of Dentistry.
The strong interest in forensic investigation, a highly multidisciplinary field, was also proving positive for science, because it encouraged students to study more science, including physics, Prof Kieser said.
A forensic biology lecture this week was devoted to ballistics and was given by Dr Darryl Tong.
Dr Tong is a Dunedin oral and maxillofacial surgeon, an Otago senior lecturer in dentistry, and a lieutenant-colonel in the Territorial Force.
He worked at a multinational medical unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from late March to May last year.
Reference:
Gibb, J. (2010, January 14). Forensics biology course wildly popular. Otago Daily Times,