RIVERTON, Utah — Just like students on football and basketball teams, three high schoolers are celebrating a Utah state title of their own, but one with a unique twist.
The students at the south campus of the Jordan Academy for Technology Careers in Riverton used their skills for investigating.
The team made up of Quinnley Star, Alison Anderson and Lucy Herold have a real interest in law enforcement.
"I always thought that crime scene investigation and criminal justice was super interesting," explained Anderson.
A few weeks ago, the passion the students had for the field led them atop the stage in the Skills USA competition at Salt Lake Community College.
"They called us as the gold, the first place, we just started screaming because it was so exciting," said Star.
What exactly does a CSI competition entail?
"Going to look at blood spatter, maybe how to start their investigation, because they're timed," shared Brandon Palmer, the criminal justice teacher at the school who spent 17 years in law enforcement.
Palmer said the students each have different responsibilities and they'll discuss who has what responsibility to perform better.
Those responsibilities were on full display Tuesday as the team went through a mock crime scene, much as they did in their state competition.
"Even though we say the timing part of it, maybe is not that realistic, the stress is," shared Palmer.
"CSI, they have so much on them because all the evidence they collect is so vital for the investigation that if they miss anything or contaminate any of the evidence, it can greatly impact the investigation," said Star.
As squad leader, Anderson was responsible for photographing the scene, while her teammates located evidence and took measurements as classmates looked on.
"We go through mock crime scenes and we package evidence, and we go through and look at the crime scene to kind of see what happened," Anderson explained.
"I'm learning new things," said Herold. "You learn something new every time you go into a crime scene."
Practice will hopefully make perfect for the team of three as they are now preparing to heading to the national competition.
"We also are going to learn from the Salt Lake City Community College forensics teacher and she's going to help us figure out what we did wrong and then hopefully we can fix those mistakes and do the best we can at nationals," added Star.
The team heads to Atlanta for nationals starting June 24. There is a GoFundMe campaign to help them pay for the trip to nationals. It can be found HERE.
