Popular television crime-drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is going on display in Philadelphia to promote forensic science.
The interactive exhibit, based heavily on the popular television franchise, will be on display at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, inviting would-be CSIs to use science to decipher clues and solve crime.
The permanent attraction made its debut in 2009 at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, the home of the original Crime Scene Investigation series, and has proved so popular that it’s hitting the road.
New exhibits on display at the Franklin Institute present visitors with three gruesome crimes – a car crashed into a house, a skeleton in the desert, and finally, a dead woman in an alley.
Visitors are then encouraged to put on their detective caps and collect evidence using real-life forensic techniques, such as examining blood-spatter and lifting fingerprints, to solve the fictional crime.
Throughout the display, the show’s characters are on hand to offer tips and tricks in short videos, with appearances made by Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes.
Visitors then take their evidence for analysis in the exhibit’s lab, where they present their findings to a virtual rendering of CSI icon Gil Grissom.
Also on hand throughout are real-life forensic experts and scientists, who lend their expertise and educate visitors.
One such expert – from the Tarrant County Texas Medical Examiner’s office – Ronald Singer said: “You can turn on just about any channel these days and find ‘Forensic Files’, ‘NCIS’ and other shows that bring in forensic science.
“To a lot of people, science is like a dry and dull subject. But when people see it in a real-life application like this, it shows that science has a real place in the world.”
Show organiser Christoph Rahofer echoed Singer, saying: “Forensic science is a broad and interdisciplinary field that people find appealing. People like to figure things out; it’s very much like solving a puzzle.”
The exhibition stops in Philadelphia from 1 October to 2 January.
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