Section 1 Introduction
Targets
At the end of this Unit you should be able to answer the following questions
1. What is evidence?
1.1 What evidence can be found of human or animal activity?
1.2 How can evidence be used to make inferences?
Video
In the following video, you will see how evidence is gathered to draw conclusions about a birthday party mess such as the one you saw earlier. Notice how different observations allow the investigators to make inferences about who might have made the mess. The evidence also helps them rule out certain people as suspects.
As you watch
Possible items:
- fiber or hair
- bite marks
- fabric
- footprints
- soil
- suspect interviews
- saliva
- tire tracks
- fingerprints
Check Your Answers
| fibre or hair | bite marks |
| fabric | saliva |
| footprints | tire tracks |
| soil | fingerprints |
| suspect interviews |
Career Connection
Investigators rely on recording all observations carefully to gather as much information as possible. They try not to make any assumptions before analyzing the evidence because they never know which observations might be useful. To see how good you are at making observations, take the observation test.