Day 69 - Tuesday January 4. 2011

Welcome back family; I hope that your holiday break was both exhilarating and restful. Including today there are a scant 14 classes remaining in the term so I sincerely hope that you've shaken off the sleepy head syndrome and are ready to charge to the finish line.

A - Introduction to Law 9/10 - Today we begin three consecutive days in the library to finish working on our Clue Us In crime scene reconstruction activity that we began before Christmas. In case you forgot....from the December 8th blog entry:

You will need to imagine that you are a constable in the Comox Valley R.C.M.P. detachment specializing in criminalistics and crime scene analysis. You are going to create a crime scene dossier file that you would normally put together for the Crown Counsel. You have been called out to a crime scene here in the Comox Valley and when you arrive at the scene you need to begin your narrative report. What do you need to do?

•Create a crime (ex: murder, arson, kidnapping, assault)
•Choose eight pieces of evidence (from the list below) that you would find at the crime scene and either help you solve the crime or mislead the investigators
•Create a victim, a perpetrator, two other potential subjects, & witnesses (not necessary)
•Create a dossier file that contains the following: a walk through narrative; pictures of the eight pieces of evidence (with a description, a tag number, and an explanation of where it was found); a detailed crime scene diagram/sketch with pictures of what the crime scene looked like and the identification of evidence; forensics lab sheets for each piece of evidence that describes the evidence and explains what the evidence tells you; transcripts of any interviews conducted by investigators (including potential eyewitnesses or suspects); a narrative of how you "solved" the crime so that the Crown Counsel can move forward with laying charges and proceed to trial.

Evidence to choose from: human hair, synthetic hair, carpet fibres, cotton fibres, bullet cartridges, bullet holes, finger prints, foot/shoe prints, blood stains (drip, splatter, pool), bodily fluids, skin epithelial, tube of lipstick, can of coke, apple core, piece of rope, body, accellerants, matches, money (wallet), poisons, bugs or larvae (blowflies), cigar or cigarette but, mug, tire treads, or any other trace evidence but you must approve the other evidence with me.

This assignment is due this Friday (January 7th) so you really need to focus on finishing your work in the given time.

C - Law 12 - Today we will spend the entire block working on our civil law case study project. Take a look at the section on Trespass to Person and Property in Intentional Torts (chapter 12 - pages 321-327) in the All About Law textbook. There are defenses to trespass (consent, self-defense, defense of a third party, defense of property, legal authority, and necessity) that you should take a look at as well (pages 328-331). You should be aware that there are 12 classes remaining until our final exam days and 14 classes remaining until our major project is due....no pressure.

D - Geography 12 - Today and tomorrow we are going to take a look at climatology and climate types on the planet. We will make sense of the Koppen climate classification system and today you'll need to explain in your own words the follwing climates: Af, Am, Aw, Cfb, Csa, Csb, Dfb, Dwb, Dfc, Dwc, ET (don't say it!), Bw, and Bs (Many thanks to Michael Ritter for his on line Physical Environment textbook!). You'll also need to complete questions 9, 14, and 19 from page 326 in your Geosystems text.

For help with Koppen - Geiger see:
Blue Planet Biomes - World Climates
Physicalgeography.net - Climate classification
About.com - Koppen chart