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Ohio High School Starts Forensic Science and Literary Crime Drama Class
It’s great to see some positive school news.
Sometimes cliches are ubiquitous cliches for good reason. The amazing teacher changing a student’s life with a remarkable and fun class perfectly fits that bill. This just what is happening in a high school in a tiny Ohio city.
Chardon, Ohio is a sleepy hamlet of a little over 5,000 people as of the 2010 Census. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated city in Geauga County — despite about the 93,000 people who live there.
Do not mistake the quiet nature of the city for boredom or banality though. Chardon High School is proving their hometown to be anything but that. Fans of true crime could not be happier.
Chardon science teacher Jill Carpenter has a specialized education in forensic science that she really was not using. That is, until she and English and Theater teacher and good friend Holly Mihalek thought outside the usual pedagogical box. Both had around 40 years of total experience in education.
The two passionate educators began thinking of what a class combining both their disciplines might look like. Their inspiration was a teacher’s seminar both attended in San Diego where similar collaboration ideas were discussed in some depth.