Russian schoolchildren are reportedly being taught biology by being asked to calculate how long a murderer’s alibi needs to be given the rate at which a corpse loses heat.

The dark question was asked of young students at School No 5 in the town of Tobolsk, which is located in the Tyumen Oblast region in Siberia in central Russia.

The photograph shows the biology problem a father noticed his son had been given to elucidate, and he snapped a picture of it, which he then shared on social media, where it quickly made the rounds and raised eyebrows, later making national headlines.

The problem says (in Russian): “The corpse of a murdered man is discovered at 8pm. How long should the suspect’s alibi be if it is known that the body gives off heat at a rate of 1.5 degrees Celsius per hour?”

The problem was reportedly part of the pupils’ work on the subject of “thermoregulation of the body”.

Another task that the schoolchildren were reportedly asked to complete was determining who would freeze faster in cold weather, a sober or a drunk person.

The head of the school, who has not been named, explained that the biology teacher, also unnamed, had taken the exercises from a forensics textbook.

But they added that the teacher had consulted with a psychologist, who deemed that the 15-year-olds would be able to handle the tasks without problem.

The reasoning was that at the age of 15, children have an understanding of death and its irreversibility.

The teenagers reportedly enjoyed solving the problem and some zealous students were even able to calculate how long the alibi needed to be right down to the minute, the school head summed up happily.