The Freedom Center has partnered with Dominion High School this year to achieve the goal of the Freedom Center, which is to battle injustice and incite hope with STEM and education based initiatives, something that they plan to implement at Dominion.

The Freedom Center is a historical site where people can go to learn more about the history of African Americans. They want to work with schools to educate students about the history of the Belmont Plantation, which is a burial ground for the formerly enslaved and a big part of their mission is historical preservation.

“The goal is to engage student groups in helping us do investigative research. This is intended to produce inter-disciplinary STEM studies and project-based learning. We want students to ‘get their hands dirty’ in doing, not just studying,” said Mr. Snowden, the director of education at the Freedom Center.

The conversation started with Ms. Wingfield and Mrs. Marnell approaching Mrs. Braxton, who made the connection to Pastor Thomas, the founder of the Freedom Center, through Facebook. “We met with the founder of the center, Michelle Thomas, and told her what our interest was (using science to preserve history). She thought the partnership would be beneficial to both the Center and DHS,” Ms. Wingfield said. Ms. Wingfield is the director of science and technology at the Freedom Center.

“Our founder, Pastor Michelle C. Thomas, located the cemetery at the Belmont Plantation nearly three years ago and went on a crusade to protect and preserve it. Now that we own it, we want to learn more about who is buried there and what their lives were like,” Mr. Snowden said.

Dominion has used every opportunity to incorporate students at Dominion. “The opportunities are there for students because some students are already working on primary source documents from the Balch Library which is the Loudoun County library. On the science side, Ms. Wingfield is working with one of the top historical archaeologist in America to work on the presentation of the site. Mr. Baker’s class did some of the branding for an event, making buttons and t-shirts. All of those items had the new logo for the Belmont Cemetery for the Enslaved which was designed by our art teachers,” Mrs. Braxton said.

Currently, Dominion High School is working with the Freedom Center to find out what is buried under the Belmont Plantation.