At the unique facility -- officially known as the Anthropological Research Facility -- student-investigators examine human corpses in various states of decomposition lying in assorted circumstances.

Some 180 bodies are scattered throughout the three-acre site, some of them in deep graves, some in shallow ones, and some in bizarre locations such as car trunks and trees.

At the Body Farm -- made famous in a 1994 book of the same name written by Patricia Cornwell -- lessons mimic the real world.

"We dug up a body buried a year and a half ago, fully decomposed," Cunningham said. Her class pieced together evidence from the corpse they retrieved, trying to determine how the person might have died.

"You uncover it with a trowel, layer by layer, and try to keep it together as much as you can," she said. "You never know what bones can tell you."

Afterwards, the class buried a body that had been under a tarp for three months for a future group's project.

For that class, things won't be exactly as they seem. Cunningham's crew left clues -- and some red herrings -- with the body. The "evidence," an iron rod and some business cards, may or may not be relevant to how the person died.

In addition to working on the Farm, the class got to blow up cars, torch two rooms of furniture and watch an autopsy at the medical examiner's office in Nashville.

Some of her classmates were hesitant to sit in on the autopsy, but "it doesn't bother me," Cunningham said. "It gives you a better idea of how the body works and how things happen from trauma."

During the session, student-investigators also heard the latest on blood-spatter evidence in a session taught by Paulette Sutton, formerly of the Regional Forensic Center in Memphis, and learned techniques for lifting fingerprints, photographing crime scenes, examining bone trauma, and determining arson.

"I'm a visual person," Cunningham said. "There is nothing to compare to having someone tell you, then show you."

Cunningham said she valued the chance to meet fellow investigators from other parts of the country. "You realize everybody doesn't do things the same way," she said. "You get a wide range of outlooks and experiences."

"Going to the school doesn't make you an expert," she said. "But it gives you an overall picture. It opens your eyes."

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