Instructions:
Create or find a footwear impression in your house or outside. For thisassignment it is best to use an older shoe with a lot of wear. You can step inmud, dirt, or sand, put some ink or paint on the bottom of an old shoe and stepon paper, or whatever method you can find with the materials in your house.
Take some photographs of your footwear impression with a ruler in the picture.Try to use a flashlight from different angles to bring out detail within theimpression, especially if you create a three-dimensional one in a soil material.
Take a photograph of the bottom of the shoe that made the impression and thenexamine it. What characteristics in the wear of the shoe (areas that are worndown from use), damage to the shoe (nicks, cuts, scratches, chunks of thebottom missing, etc.), or temporary characteristics (gum, mud, stickers on thebottom) do you see?
Compare that to your impression. Can you see the same characteristics?
Write about your experience with this comparison and the characteristics yousaw. How can this type of evidence aid an investigation and determine thesource of an impression at a crime scene? Include at least one photo of theimpression and one photo of the bottom of the shoe. You can circle the areasthat are similar between the two to demonstrate what you saw during theexamination