As long as you know a decedent's gender and ethnicity you can calculate their height using the humerus, tibia, or femur. There are standardized equations for each of these bones and each gender/race possibility. However, because the equations are standardized, they calculate an approximate maximum and minimum height range rather than an exact height to try and account for variability as every individual is different.

     In order to get started with any of our calculators, here are the materials you will need (in addition to whatever bones you have from your decedent):

The only thing you need to do to use the height calculators is plug in the maximum length, in centimeters, of whatever bone you're using into the correct calculator based on the ethnicity and sex of your decedent. That's really it! The calculator does all the work for you based on the formulas provided by Project Lead the Way. There are other formulas out there and we encourage you to explore them and do some by hand, but ours is used by an nation-wide curriculum which means it's pretty accurate. Follow the pictures below on how to measure the maximum length of each bone type: