Dominique Barksdale of Flossmoor loves teaching, but the COVID-19 virus stopped her second trip to China this summer.
In summer 2019, she was selected as one of eight American teachers for the WOW Kids Creativity and Technology Camp based in Shanghai. Barksdale focused on forensics.
Dominique Barksdale of Flossmoor loves teaching, but the COVID-19 virus stopped her second trip to China this summer.
In summer 2019, she was selected as one of eight American teachers for the WOW Kids Creativity and Technology Camp based in Shanghai. Barksdale focused on forensics.
She got to China a week ahead of the six-week program to acclimate to the culture. She remembers she was a person of interest to the Chinese not only as a young Black woman, “but at the time I had braids. The kids said they’d never seen that!”
She taught in one-week segments. Sessions were in two-hour blocks morning and afternoon. There also were special evening events, such as movie nights and a murder mystery night Barksdale organized that required students to look for clues to solve the murder.
After a week, a new group of students would be in the program. Although the WOW camp is based in Shanghai, Barksdale traveled to sessions in Xiamen and Shenzhen.
Forensics is a pretty heavy topic for kids ages 8 to 15, so Barksdale had to bring it down to a child’s level – with English translations. But she believes the camp wasn’t necessarily meant for 100 percent knowledge as it was more about discovery and emersion into something new.
“It doesn’t have to be about ‘Oh, we’re talking about dead bodies and there’s blood everywhere.’ It’s group based; you aren’t just focusing on these heavy terms but team building and how we can use our strengths to investigate this crime scene,” she said. Within the group, there would be “someone who can sketch the scene, someone who’s going to write down notes and someone who’s going to photograph and record.”
The 24-year-old said she’s already formulating an agenda for her WOW camp in 2021, assuming the pandemic will be managed by then.
For now, she’s focusing closer to home and is in consultation with the Homewood Science Center about organizing a hands-on program.
Barksdale herself became interested in forensics at the EXPLO Summer Camp hosted by Yale University. She attended the camp her sophomore and junior years in high school. At the close of camp, she won a book by the renown forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee, a professor at the University of New Haven.
When her parents, Dawn and Darryl Barksdale, came to Connecticut to pick her up from camp, “I told them that’s where I’m going to school, and I did go to college there,” she said. Her degree is in forensic science with a minor in chemistry.
The summer of 2017, her senior college year, she was accepted as an EXPLO camp instructor in anatomy and physiology, and in 2018 as an instructor for forensic science.
“I got to meet so many students from all over the world. It was a really great experience,” Barksdale said. And, it was her roommate at camp who encouraged her to apply for a position with the WOW camp in China.
Her next step is a graduate degree in crime science from Cedar Creek College in Pennsylvania. Barksdale said the program will offer her a generalist degree.
“It’s science, but not just what’s in the lab,” she said. “It’s how to give court testimony, how to present yourself, what results mean when DNA is tested. It teaches you a whole overview so you’re exceptional in all areas.”
While she’s home, she’s taken a few chemistry classes at Governors State University to add to her transcript.