REDMOND – Redmond High School senior Katie Wing is planning to become a detective someday.

So for her, the RHS forensics class might be just what she’s been waiting for.

”I just encourage a lot of people to take it,” said Katie, who is among those taking the class from forensic science and biology teacher Angela Ricco. Katie said even if someone doesn’t want to have a law-related job, a student can still learn a lot and have fun in the class.

This marks the first year Ricco has taught the class, which is set up for sophomores through seniors and it will be offered all three trimesters.

The class meets Certificate of Advanced Mastery (CAM) requirements while also showing high school students like Katie different career possibilities. It’s a matter of offering students choices, Ricco said.

”It’s what you always hope for as a teacher about building lifelong learners,” Ricco said. ”Our hope with this is not to turn everyone into a budding scientist. That’s not realistic or even what you would want. Our hope is that this will make students more scientifically literate.”

So for example, if a student of hers one day serves on a jury, he can critically examine the evidence presented.

”The idea is to have a course that has a high level of interest for students. We’ve tried to go away from the theoretical to the applied,” Ricco said.

In the class, students work backward from a solved case to the theories of science that solved it.

Ricco was a student teacher under Jan Irving at McNary High School in Keizer in 1998 and 1999.

Irving had taken a sabbatical to work with the Salem Police Department so she could develop her own forensics course.

”Forensics has been my pet, I guess you could say,” she said.

Students who watch ”Forensics Files,” which is based on real-life cases, or ”CSI,” a television forensics drama, sometimes come in and ask her questions on the methods used in the shows.

”It’s not about memorizing facts. It’s about understanding a process,” Ricco said.

Students have a variety of science lessons they will explore through the class.

For example, they will learn about kinetic energy and inertia.

Ricco notes that while students who hunt deer may ”know what kind of bullets they need and what those bullets will do to the animal, but they don’t know why.”

In the class they get those answers, finding out the properties of metal in bullets and about inertia.

They’re also getting some math lessons. During one recent class, they calculated the width of a hair.

They’ll also learn about chemical analysis.

Students in Ricco’s class will also learn to calculate the density of glass, discuss polymerase chain reactions and later develop a DNA fingerprint using gel electrophoresis. The class also covers arson and explosion investigations, genetics and forensic entomology.

With the help of Dr. William Bass, a forensic anthropologist in charge of the ”Body Farm” near at the University of Tennessee, they will look at the rate of a body’s decomposition at different times.

They’ll also learn about Carbon 14 dating and the difference between male and female skeletons.

”Not very many people know that you can tell just from the skull alone,” Ricco said.

They’ve had Dr. Steven Cross, a former medical examiner, in as a guest speaker. Ricco’s looking for more guest speakers. Those who would like to speak to Ricco’s classes may call her at the high school, 923-4800, ext. 219, between 7:36 a.m. and 8:45 a.m.

Junior Rachael Hinman said she loves the class.

”I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for quite some time since my freshman year. And it’s everything I wanted it to be,” Rachael said. She’s considering a career in criminology, but isn’t sure yet where she wants to attend college.

Fellow junior Nick Nicholson also enjoys the class.

”I think it’s great,” he said. ”It’s great to have a teacher that’s so enthusiastic about her job.”