IMSA Excellence 2000+ Curriculum

Learning Summary
Just inside the broken window, the detective found a hairbrush and carefully sealed it in a plastic evidence bag. In the activity, Having a bad Hair Day?, students observe several different types of human and animal hair using a microscope.

And check out this Web page that has microscopic views of hair from many different animals.

Learning Objectives
The students will:

• learn about the structure of a hair and observe the structure with a microscope;
• use the microscope to observationally compare and contrast the hairs of different humans, and compare and contrast human, cat, dog and rabbit hairs; and,
• address the question of using hair to identify specific people or specific animal species.