A burglary had taken place at the Huxton’s home. Footprints were found throughout the recently watered flower garden and leading to the window of a bedroom located at the back of the expensive home. Just as the burglar was leaving the house, the owner returned home and caught a glimpse of a teenage boy dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans running through the garden.

The police questioned four neighbor teens. All four young men denied that they had been anywhere near the Huxton property and stated that they did not burglarize the home. Four pairs of jeans were confiscated and taken in evidence bags to the crime lab to be examined for pollen evidence that could possibly link the suspect to the Huxton garden.

Neighbors long suspected that the college students living in an adjacent apartment were growing their own marijuana. Why else would they need so many artificial lights set up in their basement? The parade of people coming and going into their apartment in the late evening hours also made the neighbors suspicious that the students were not only growing marijuana but selling it, too! The police were notified. The police were going to make a surprise visit to the home, arrest the occupants, and confiscate the drugs.

Just before the police arrived, the students got a call from one of their friends telling them what was about to happen. They quickly bagged all of the plants and got rid of the indoor lights an hour before the police arrived. The police had a warrant to search the premises. No plants or grow lights were visible. The occupants denied growing marijuana. With no visible evidence of the plants, the police decided to look for trace evidence of pollen.

Marijuana plants are known to release large quantities of pollen. Although the occupants of the house had removed the plants, they did not eliminate all of the pollen that was left on the floor and tabletops. The occupants just assumed it was dust from a lack of cleaning. The police sent the trace evidence of pollen to the crime lab. As expected, the dust was identified as marijuana pollen. The amount of pollen in the room indicated that many plants had been present.

The purpose of this activity is for you and a partner to research an actual court case that involved botanical evidence to help solve the crime. After completing the research, you and your partner will prepare an oral presentation.

The purpose of this activity is to familiarize you with the proper procedures for processing a botanical crime scene.

At the end of this activity, you will be able to do the following:

Describe how to collect, stain, and view pollen under a microscope.

Perform a pollen count over a four-day period.

Collect and analyze pollen data for a four-day period.

Suggest a possible explanation for variations in the average pollen index over a four-day period, citing evidence from the data.

In this activity, you will examine stained pollen extracted from honey samples. Based on your observations and research, you will make a claim as to whether the product label stating the source of the honey is consistent with your findings.