New Rochelle, N.Y ? The muddy area around the crime scene had yielded several promising footprints, and the crime scene investigators had carefully applied a liquid molding mixture. But when they tried to dig out the first hardened cast, it broke in half.

“Awwww,” said the investigators, sounding like the teenagers they are.

The investigators are the first high school students in the nation to use a forensic-science curriculum offered by Court TV and designed to capitalize on interest in television shows like “CSI” and “Forensic Files.”

Science teachers at high schools in the New York City suburbs of New Rochelle, Jericho and Wantagh are using some or all of the nine lessons in the curriculum, and their experiences will be presented this weekend to 150 other teachers from throughout the country at the Forensic Science Educational Conference in New York.

Evan Shapiro, a Court TV vice president, said he hoped the curriculum, which can be downloaded for free beginning today, would be in 1,000 classrooms nationwide by May.

“What people like about these TV shows is looking over the shoulder of the investigator,” he said. “We’re hoping to take this interest, and maybe the interest in real-life crimes like 9-11 or anthrax or the Washington sniper, and turn it into a real interest in biology and chemistry that shows these kids why science is important to their life.”

Scott Rubins, a science teacher at New Rochelle (N.Y.) High School, and his students examine two footprint casts behind their school. The students are the first in the nation to use a forensic-science curriculum offered by Court TV and designed to capitalize on the interest in television shows like CSI and Forensic

Court TV devised the curriculum with guidance from the American Academy of Forensic Science. New Rochelle teacher Scott Rubins said it met all educational standards. The nine lessons, grouped into three mysteries, include tests for gunshot residue and fingerprint matching. Together, they might fill a few weeks of the school year, Rubins said.

On Tuesday, his forensic science class went out near the high school track to work on “The Case of the Car that Swims,” which posits that fishermen have found an automobile submerged in a river, 30 yards from shore. The students were making footprint castings in hopes of determining who was at the scene when the car went in.

“A lot of times, people hear things in the news and say, ‘Oh, the police aren’t doing enough, they’re not doing very much about that,'” said Amanda Miller, a 16-year-old junior. “But after this, you sort of get the idea that there’s so much more going on when they try to solve a crime.”

Senior Annie Liu, 17, said the course had prompted her to consider going into premed and specialize in forensic science.

“It’s definitely put it in my mind as something I might want to do,” she said.