If you want to communicate secretly with another person, you might decide to write your message in a secret code or you might choose to write your message in invisible ink. Today, you can learn how to write in this secret ink and tomorrow you will start to learn about codes. These three websites give you directions for writing a message in invisible ink. Give it a try!

• Dragonfly TV Invisible Ink
• MI5 How to Make Invisible Ink
• Fetch Invisible Ink

Talk the Talk Word of the Day: Perp – Short for perpetrator, another name for a suspect or the person accused of a crime.

You have collected important things for your detective tool kit. Now you can learn to make a few more. Crafty Detectives has all kinds of directions for making detective tools. In it you can learn to to make a hidden camera, a trick wallet, an undercover book, alarms and a lot more.

The marble telescope and the persiscope are both devices to help you conduct secret surveillance. With a periscope you can see around corners or over walls or fences. With the marble telescope you can see through a keyhole. Really. Give them a try.
• Marble Telescope
• Exploratorium: Up Periscope

Talk the Talk Word of the Day: Mole - A person secretly gathering information from people. The people think the person is loyal but the person is really collecting information for someone else.

This time, you will use an online lab to do some DNA testing. Read the mystery to understand what evidence has been collected and who the suspects are. Then follow the directions in the online lab to do the DNA testing yourself.

Website: NOVA It Takes a Licken DNA Fingerprinting

Talk the Talk Word of the Day: Lead – Evidence that points an investigation in a particular direction.

Yesterday, you learned how to take a person’s fingerprints. That is getting a sample.  In order to match a fingerprint at a crime scene, you need to have a collection of samples to match to.

Today, you are going to learn how to take a fingerprint from an object – this is called picking up latent fingerprints. These are the fingerprints that have been left behind. One way detectives find fingerprints is by dusting the crime scene for them. Fingerprints are coated with powder, then lifted and taken to a lab for identification.

Here are three website that can help you learn all about fingerprint analysis.

• Cyberbee Fingerprint Dusting at the Crime Scene
• Science News for Kids: Fingerprint Evidence
• CSI Forensic Adventures Loops, Whorls or Arches

Now try your skills at Fetch’s crime scene at Canine Sniffer Intelligence: Hat Snatcher. Fetch’s hat has been stolen. Look over the crime scene and collect evidence. You have the skills to figure out which suspect is the true thief. Remember what you have learned about fingerprints.

Talk the Talk Word of the Day: Forensics – Scientific tests used to solve mysteries.