At first glance, it looks like any other building on campus. Inside, the scene – along with evidence and clues – tell a very different story.

There’s a coffee table cluttered with bills, a shattered picture frame, a broken egg in the kitchen and an abandoned wallet. A closer look reveals fingerprints hidden under blacklight and a bullet lodged in the broken frame. But most notably, blood spatter on the wall.

Welcome to the Crime Scene House at the University of Northern Iowa — a space where criminology students move beyond textbooks and into hands-on investigative work. The house is one of the newest examples of experiential learning on campus, designed to help students apply classroom concepts in realistic, high-impact settings.

For professor Erin Pavioni, the Crime Scene House is the next step in work she began long before the space existed.

She originally built crime scenes in empty office spaces across campus to give students a more immersive way to apply what they were learning in her homicide investigation course. Now, those scenarios fill an entire house — each one carefully constructed.

Pavioni designs every detail herself, from blood spatter patterns and financial records to prescription bottles and hidden fingerprints. She even rotates cadaver models to reflect different stages of decomposition depending on the case.

Students enter without knowing the story. Their job is to figure it out.

They analyze clues, collect evidence, examine decomposition and determine time of death. Small details like a newspaper date, a phone left on a table and even present insects can shift the direction of a case. Miss a detail, and the narrative changes.

Senior criminology and criminal justice and psychology double major Emma Stoffel says the experience has changed how course material connects in practice. As president of the Criminology Club and a student in Pavioni’s classes, she has helped build and work through the scenes.

“Looking around, you can tell that whatever happened here, it happened very suddenly, because the egg was dropped,” Stoffel said. “I’m assuming whoever came in killed them immediately.”

She also pointed to the blood spatter patterns.

“You can tell, because of the way the blood is sliding, that they were shot, hit the wall and then came down, because we learned blood spatter analysis in our homicide class,” she said.

The experience is difficult to replicate in a traditional classroom.

“Professor Pavioni setting up these scenes lets you actually experience solving the homicide,” she said. “It gives you the chance to piece it together yourself rather than just sitting in class and imagining what it would be like.”

Students take on roles such as photographer, detective and evidence technician, learning how different parts of an investigation work together.

In one class, Stoffel served as the photographer, documenting every piece of evidence.

“My photos actually got sent to our detectives, and that’s what was used when we built our case,” she said. “It was kind of cool to see the work that I put in being used to help everybody else.”

The Crime Scene House sits within UNI’s new School of Public Affairs & Service, which brings together programs in political science, public administration, political communication,  criminology and criminal justice, along with graduate programs in public policy and philanthropy & nonprofit development.

“Many of our graduates work in public and nonprofit organizations that provide vital public services and enrich their communities,” said Scott Peters, head of the school. “Put simply, we’re preparing leaders for public service and civic life.”

That mission is especially evident in criminology and criminal justice, where students pursue careers in law enforcement, corrections, juvenile justice and community organizations serving individuals and families across a range of needs.

For Stoffel, who’s now approaching graduation, that future now feels closer than it once did. She did not expect experiences like this when she arrived at UNI.

“I think ‘freshman me’ would be absolutely giddy about this,” Stoffel said.