Science Projects on Fingerprint Facts
With the popularity of television shows such as "CSI," fingerprints are a common subject for science projects. Some projects examine what fingerprints are, while others look at hereditary links in fingerprints. Other projects examine the most common characteristics of fingerprints.
Other People Are Reading
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The Basics of Fingerprints
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"Fingerprints," at the ZOOM website, is a project for primary grade students. In this project, students take a lead pencil and make a dark black mark with it on a piece of paper. The students then rub the tips of their index fingers on the black mark until the tips are dark. They put a piece of clear tape on their fingertips, peel the tape off and affix the tape to a white sheet of paper. Students then can examine what their fingerprints look like using magnifying glasses.
Fingerprints and Hereditary Traits
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Students can perform an experiment that looks at similarities between the fingerprints of several family members. For each experiment, there must be one child and at least two adults, one from the paternal side and the other from the maternal side. They could be mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles or grandparents of the child. Fingerprints are taken from each person. The student then looks at similarities between each set of fingerprints, looking most closely at whorls, loops and arches, and draws conclusions from the observations.
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Common Fingerprint Characteristics
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This project examines which characteristics are most commonly found in people's fingerprints. To do this, fingerprint samples are taken from the entire class. The students then examine each set of fingerprints and record how often arches, loops and whorls appear. They will correlate their results and draw conclusions.
Taking Fingerprints
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Another project looks at the different techniques used in lifting fingerprints from a crime scene and their effectiveness. For this experiment, a student will need a variety of surfaces that will hold fingerprints. She will also need the materials most commonly used to lift fingerprints, such as bi-chromatic powder, magnetic powder, fluorescent powder, super glue and Ninhydrin solution. The student then uses each of these materials to lift fingerprints from various surfaces and records the effectiveness of each.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Eyeglass and fingerprint image by Warren Millar from Fotolia.com
