The theme song from the popular crime-solving television show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" plays in the background as the students, mostly juniors and seniors, enter Jim Rocco's classroom.

Today, these Penn Hills High School students in the new forensics science class will look at the life stages of flies and how their life-cycle progression can help scientist discover the time of death of their host. Soon, the students will take this information out into the field, where decomposing "victims" have been placed and await determination of time of death.

The "victims," actually pork roasts, have been stabbed, beaten or left mysteriously intact and placed in four stations outside the high school building.

How did the weather, which Mr. Rocco has religiously recorded since he placed the corpses, affect their conditions? Did the injuries affect decomposition? How long have they been there?

The insect activity, it seems, will tell all.

Junior Katelyn McCall's face tells the observer she's not enthusiastic about this particular subject, forensic entomology. She has to study a maggot under a microscope and the yuck factor is high.

"I knew [the class] was forensics. I didn't think it was about bugs," she said.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Katelyn McCall, makes a face as she examines a maggot during a forensics class at Penn Hills High School. Click photo for larger image.

She takes a deep breath and forges on. She wants to be a nurse, maybe a forensics nurse, and, indeed, bugs are a part of it.

And, except for bugs, she loves the class.

All too soon the bell sounds for the end of the 45-minute class.

Eric Hammill looks disappointed. "If [the class] were longer, we'd be able to do this all day," the senior said.

It's that kind of enthusiasm for learning Mr. Rocco hoped for when he proposed the class to Penn Hills administration last year.

He turned out to be right. He had no problem filling the two one-semester classes offered this term and enjoys the buzz of excitement going around the class now as vials of preserved flies and microscopes are distributed. About 25 students are in each class.

"It's May, they're seniors, and they're here," he said. What other class keeps the seniors present and involved this close to graduation, he wonders.

"[Jim] Rocco deserves a lot of credit. So does the district, for allowing it," said John Rago, a professor in the Cyril Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University. He helped Mr. Rocco build the foundation for the class.

He said the type of analytical thinking a class such as forensic science demands creates involved, interested students.

Students today are "smarter and more curious," thanks to their exposure to television and computers, Mr. Rago said. Taking lessons learned from an inquiry-based subject such as forensic science can create a better learning environment for everything from accounting to biology.

"Forensics opens the door," he said.

"It's trying to use science skills to get to the truth," Mr. Rocco said.

Once he got the OK, he developed a single-semester class which students could use as a science elective. A lab class such as chemistry is a prerequisite.

The class was offered both semesters this year and will be expanded to a full year's class next year.

"The interest level's very high. I don't think it's a fad class," Mr. Rocco said.

The students have studied toxicology, ballistics and even document forgery. Two famous cases, the assassination of President John Kennedy and the death of movie star Marilyn Monroe, were analyzed using scientific data that had been gathered in both cases.

The class is "very hands-on and very creative, too," Penn Hills High School science department head Marian Opest said.

She supported the plan when Mr. Rocco, who left the business world four years ago to start over as a teacher, proposed it. He also has been the varsity boys basketball coach for 12 years.

She thought her former student teacher had the enthusiasm to carry it through.

Mr. Rago said forensic law and science classes had been offered on the college level for about five years and had been filtering down to high school and even grade school levels since. Several years ago, he worked with Pittsburgh Public Schools when administration there expressed an interest in developing a forensics curriculum.

Although the plan has been put aside for now, Mr. Rago said, it might resurface in the near future.

Some other local high schools offer some forensic science study, either as a stand-alone class or as part of another science class.

East Allegheny High School has offered a one-semester forensic science class for about five years. It is aimed at 11th- and 12th-graders and is paired with genetics or a similar class to provide a full-year science requirement.

Both Plum and Gateway offer versions, with forensics/microbiology for upperclassmen in Plum and forensics studies integrated into an honors biology class at Gateway High School.

Penn Hills will be one of the few to offer a full year of forensics science next year.

Mr. Rocco said the proliferation of CSI-type series and cable medical shows featuring autopsies got both students and the general public interested in how science can solve crimes.

Just about everybody in the Penn Hills class watches the CSI programs regularly and are probably enjoying them more, thanks to their newfound knowledge. "You understand more," Miss McCall said.

But there's far more involved than understanding a television show better, Mr. Rocco said.

Sure, it's a class about death, the reason it attracts students in the first place. But once they're in class, the learning begins. The students develop thinking skills and move on to inquiry-based learning in general, he said.

"It's not your typical class," he said.