Students interested in forensic science form a new club at Bainbridge High.

They began their habit at age 12, two smart island girls drawn into the dark and mysterious world of murder and crime on the streets of Las Vegas.

Now 16, Genevieve Glahn and Kim Mathews think it’s time to form a bond with other teens who’ve become addicted to the TV show “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation.”

In January, the pair will hold the debut meeting of the “Forensics/C.S.I.” club at Bainbridge High School, which will be part fan club, part hands-on instruction in forensic science.

The Thursday night melodrama on CBS is a huge hit among high school students, who try to to figure out the whodunit before the senior forensic sleuth Gil Grissom and his staff in the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau do, at the conclusion of each episode.

“It’s just one of those things you get caught up in,” Mathews said.

When she recently asked students in her physics class if they would be interested in joining the club, “every hand in the room shot up.”

“All our friends will be joining, because they are fanatics too,” said Mathews, a math whiz who may pursue a career as an actuary.

With science teacher Louise Baxter as their advisor, club members will use microscopes and other laboratory tools to examine hair, fiber, and splatter marks to solve hypothetical mysteries, for fun.

They may even get permits to collect island road kill, so they can learn about bug development and decomposition.

“And we’ll have murder-mystery parties, where we take what we have learned and investigate things,” said Glahn, who has hosted C.S.I. sleuthing parties in the past, to celebrate Halloween and her birthday.

“Kim and I have had an unoffical club since eighth-grade,” said Glahn, who once dreamed of being a particle physicist, but now wants to be an actress. To fund experiments and lectures, the girls, who are best friends, have petitioned the student government. If the request is denied, they will look elsewhere, they said.

“We’re so lucky to have an advisor who actually has an interest and background in forensic science,” Glahn said. “I mean, we could have had an English teacher do it, but it just wouldn’t be the same. We’re excited to learn from Dr. Baxter.”

In fact, Baxter is taking a proposal to the school board this spring for permission to teach a forensics science class next year.

She envisions a curriculum that introduces students to the real world of forensic science, where analysis of fingerprints, glass, soil, fiber, paint, toxicology, DNA and plant materials provide evidence to help solve crimes. The course would also delve into the analysis and examination of bones, fire and explosives, documents and voice patterns.

In addition to her previous coursework in forensics, Baxter is attending a summer seminar on “Medicolegal Death Investigation,” in St. Louis.

“Nobody would be interested in forensic science if it weren’t for TV,” and the new forensics shows that can be found there, Baxter said.

“Of course, in real forensics, the people who examine the evidence are not involved in solving the crime, like they are on TV.”

While Baxter says she isn’t a fan of the Crime Scene Investigation franchise – which has spawned the spinoff hits “C.S.I.: Miami” and “C.S.I.: New York – she’s thrilled that it has generated so much interest in science.

And apparently, so are the girls’ parents. Now that their C.S.I. addiction has spawned a club with an academic side, Glahn said, “My mom is happy that now we’re at least going to learn something.”