The Suffolk Commonwealth Attorney’s Office is signing up students aged 12 to 15 for its next forensics camp, to be held during the first full week of summer break.

Suffolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Phil Ferguson will host the fourth camp. The camps began in 2013, when two were held, said Joan Turner, community outreach coordinator with the office and formerly supervisor of Suffolk Police Department’s forensics unit.

“It’s about the study of forensics and how it can assist in the prosecution of cases,” Turner said.

“We are really hoping that a lot of the students participating will (become) more interested and want to become a lawyer or forensics technician in the future.”

The free camp will run over five four-hour days from June 15-19, at the Suffolk Health and Human Services building on Hall Avenue.

According to Turner, the curriculum includes crime scene photography, note-taking, sketching, recovering evidence such as footprints, collecting fibers and hairs, and DNA observation, collection and preservation.

Students will apply the lessons to mock crime scenes, according to Turner, and three attorneys from the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office will speak to them about using forensic evidence in prosecutions.

In real life, it’s not always the same as in the movies and on TV, she said. “Everything they see on TV doesn’t happen in 30 minutes. It can take months. We are hoping that they will understand that what they see on TV may not be completely true.”

Joining her as instructors, Turner said, will be Debbie Callis from the Suffolk Sheriff’s Office and Bert Nurney and Wayne Hall from the Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office.

Each instructor takes classes of between 10 and 12 students, Turner said, which maximizes the amount of one-on-one, hands-on teaching.

Ferguson will welcome the students at the beginning of the camp and deliver a presentation during graduation, she said, and students will graduate with certificates.

Four older students will help out, according to Turner. Those between 16 and 18 will earn 20 hours toward their 50-hour Suffolk Public Schools community service graduation requirement.

Parents need to sign up for the camp by June 5, and can contact Joan Turner at 514-4379. “We are going to take from 40 to 50,” Turner said.

Application forms are online at www.suffolkva.us/cwatty/forensics-camp.