Suzanne Fulk, the eighth-grade science teacher at St. Gabriel School, loves the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” family of television shows.

She’s a fan of the original CSI and of “CSI: Miami,” and “CSI: New York.” She’d probably watch “CSI: Paducah” if there was such a show. But most importantly for her students, she found a way to link her interest in the shows to the curriculum in her classroom.

For the past few weeks her eighth-grade science class has been learning about the scientific background on which those TV shows are based. They’ve studied the nature of fingerprints, plaster foot-castings and other methods used by law enforcement to catch and prosecute criminals.

And they’ve heard the details of those efforts from professionals — a Louisville Metro Police Department sergeant, Joseph Wagner, and an LMPD crime scene technician, Deanna Williams.

“I was looking for ways to get my students more interested in science,” said Fulk, who has been teaching for 27 years — 22 of them at St. Gabriel School. Over the years she’s been especially keen about interesting girls in the subject, and she’s seen progress in that area.

In times past, she noted, girls didn’t often express much interest in science. “Seldom do you hear a girl say they’ve asked for a chemistry set, for instance,” she said. “But that’s changing.”

And in time she’s seen many of her students — boys and girls — go on to careers as doctors, pharmacists, marine biologists or as others in the field of science. This year’s students, she said, have really taken an interest in the unit on forensic science she’s been teaching.

“We have mini-mysteries that the kids have to solve,” she explained. “The subject also provides an opportunity for them to meet a police officer in a situation that doesn’t involve anything negative happening. The students can develop a respect for the police officers as individuals, as people just like their moms and dads.”

In the case of the police officer and crime scene technician helping with the forensics lessons, the students have also learned that Wagner and Deanna Williams are members of the St. Gabriel community. Williams is the parent of an eighth grader, and Wagner has 13-year-old twins, Michael and Mary Elizabeth, who are also in the eighth grade at the school.

Last week, Wagner visited the classroom to go over fingerprinting techniques with the students, and he said being in a classroom and meeting students is something he has always enjoyed during his more than two decades as a police officer.

“I actually taught junior high and high school in Indianapolis before I began my career as a police officer,” he said during the Oct. 25 visit to the science class.

“Doing things like this gives students an opportunity to see officers in a positive light,” he added. “We get to interact with the kids, and they get to see us as normal, everyday people. Yes, my job requires me to carry a gun, but I’m also just like your mother and your father.”

Wagner helped students learn how to spread the graphite powder used to lift fingerprints — which leave trails of oil on surfaces, each pattern unique to a particular individual.

There are other types of fingerprint powder — including fluorescent and silver powders — but the black graphite is often used, Wagner explained.

Lifting fingerprints from touched surfaces “is the best form of forensic evidence,” though the techniques are often thought of as antiquated in times of DNA sampling, electron microscopes and other high-tech devices.

“DNA is wonderful, but I can plant your DNA at a crime scene by using blood or hair or other types of evidence that would contain your genetic code,” he said. “But if I find your fingerprints at a crime scene, it definitely means you were there. It’s only one way of determining evidence, and it’s one of the oldest forms known to forensic science. But it’s still one of the best.”

A local company, Whip Mix, donated 300 pounds of dental stone cement to the class, and Fulk said it would be enough to enable the students to make their own plaster-cast of their feet.

Williams will help the students make the castings; and Fulk also noted that Wagner was responsible for obtaining a grant that covered the additional costs of the forensic science unit.

When Wagner was working in the David District for what was then the Jefferson County Police Department, he made contacts and friends with individuals and businesses in the Rubbertown area of the county. Since then he’s been a member of the Rubbertown Community Advisory Council, and each year that group makes a $500 grant available to be used by a non-profit or charitable organization.

For the past five years Wagner has obtained the grant and given the money to St. Gabriel School for use in buying educational materials.

“We also belong to the parish here,” said Wagner, whose wife, Mary, has been a first-grade teacher at the school for the past 30 years. The couple also have a son, Joshua, 20, who is a student at Western Kentucky University.

“Providing the grant money for the school to use is just another form of stewardship,” he said. “What better way to use the money than to help students with their education.”