Participant Information Sheet

1 The Dental Arcade Game
The Dental Arcade Game is a Citizen Science project about dentition and age. Forensic scientists are often asked to give an idea of someone’s age from their teeth eruption. This is possible, but the data they have to use is not very reliable and is only applicable for a few populations. We are trying to improve this existing data, to make it easier and more accurate to estimate someone’s age from their dentition.

2 Invitation paragraph
We are inviting you (or your child) to participate in a Citizen Science project designed to:
1.      Engage children and young people in forensic science
2.      Help to establish the correlation between dental eruption and age in modern populations

3 Why are we doing this research?
This research is being carried out in order to provide more up-to-date and accurate reference data of the relationship between age and dental eruption. This data will be used to more accurately estimate the age of unknown human remains in forensic cases, or of living people who have no accurate documentation of their age.

4 What is the medicine/ procedure/research hypothesis that is being tested?
The hypothesis that is being tested is whether different teeth erupt at certain ages, if so it is possible estimate what age a person is based on the teeth that they have.

5 Why have I been invited to take part?
You have been chosen to take place in study as you are under 25 years old and/or have some of your deciduous teeth.

6 Do I have to take part?
No, your involvement in this study is completely voluntary. You may request that your details be withdrawn from the study at any time. You will be asked to sign a consent form after reading this but this will be returned to you if you participate initially and subsequently change your mind about participating.

7 What will happen to me if I take part?
You are only expected to complete the questionnaire which should take around 20 minutes. Your data will be recorded anonymously, and kept in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. The data will be analysed statistically to determine the correlation between age and dental eruption.

8 What will I be asked to do?
All that is required of you during the data collection is to complete the questionnaire on dental eruption as accurately as possible.

9 What will happen to my data?
All data that is collected will be kept anonymous during and after the study has been completed with only myself and my supervisor having access to the data. The data may be stored for up to 2 years after the completion of the study, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, but if you wish to have your data removed at any time you may without giving a reason.

10 What will happen to the results of the research study?
Once the results are collated and analysed using various statistical methods, there is an intention to publish the results in scientific journals and online. Your data will be completely anonymised, and it will not be possible to identify you from the publication.

11 Who is organising the research?
This research if being carried out by myself (Sam Elsworth) as my final your dissertation project for my Forensic and Analytical Science degree and is supervised by Dr Anna Williams, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield. The University of Huddersfield has authorised this research.

12 What are the possible disadvantages of taking part?
Due to the nature of the study there will not be anything painful or uncomfortable taking place. We will simply be looking at your teeth and recording whether they have erupted on not.

13 What are the possible benefits of taking part?
This study will provide up-to-date modern reference data to add to existing data about dental eruption that is currently used to estimate the age of unknown human remains in forensic cases or after disaster, or living people without accurate documentation stating their age. It will contribute to the body of knowledge that scientists use to estimate age. It is also a fun Citizen Science project in which to participate.

14 Contact details
Researcher – Sam Elsworth – u1457634@unimail.hud.ac.uk
Supervisor - Dr Anna Williams – a.williams@hud.ac.uk