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mountain campusthe power of place

At the Mountain Campus, we spend every day finding, nurturing, and

sharing inspiration—the engineering genius of the beaver or the spider,

the miraculous plant communication network that dominates our

root-zone soils, or the resiliency, determination and innovation of multi-

generational Vermont farming families. At the Mountain Campus,

inspiration is everywhere and boredom is not an option.

What makes you wake up, pay attention, and jump out of your chair to do something?

Wh

At in

spir

es y

ou

?

The Mountain Campus Program’s mission is to

be a catalyst for students’ growth as individuals, members

of communities, and citizens of a sustainable world.

each semester, roughly 25 to 30 Burr and Burton Academy

sophomores, juniors, and seniors immerse themselves in

a study of our local environment, engaging in challenges

that are relevant and authentic, intellectual, physical

and emotional. With every challenge, we learn,

grow, and challenge ourselves again.

The Mountain Campus program is designed to mirror real life, with all of its complex-ity, challenges, and sources of inspiration and joy. Our landscape and local community

are our classroom, our teacher, and our home. Students at the Mountain Campus will immerse themselves in this landscape, learning first-hand about the organisms and people that live here and the complex systems that sustain them. Deep understanding and care for this landscape and all that lives here are natural products of this kind of study, along with the skills, curiosity, and confidence to expand this understanding and care outward to our state, nation, and world.

Make no mistake, this program will be challenging—intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Every day will bring these challenges to life: new obstacles to overcome, new conflicts to resolve, new opportunities for growth. This experience is also transfor-mative, empowering, and incredibly fun. Although we welcome and even search for real, authentic challenges every day, we don’t operate in a vacuum or without a safety net—our community of students and teachers, neighbors and environment inform our every action. At the Mountain Campus, we firmly believe that the hard stretching of oneself—mind, body, and spirit—yields the true growth, creativity, and confidence that we so urgently need in this world.

This program is an invitation to engage in a life of learning—an invitation to discover who you are, where you live, and what sustains and inspires you. And, what we understand, we will in turn love, cherish and protect. This is an invitation to take a leap of faith, a jour-ney into the unknown with rewards that are as intangible as they are invaluable. Long days, hard work, companionship and creativity: real challenge, real thinking, real life.

Join us.

Ben FreemanMountain Campus Director

our world needs real

leaders: active citizens

with courage, compassion

and deep understanding

of place and community;

people who think differ-

ently, who understand their

history, are in touch with

our current reality, but are

always angling toward a

more just, more sustainable

future. our students are

these citizens.

MO

UNTAIN CAM

PUS

BU

RR

AN

D BURTON ACAD

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Y

At the Mountain Campus, we believe that education is not a preparation for life, it IS life.

real issues, real questions, real work to be done.

The Mountain Campus Program engages a small cohort of

motivated students in a semester-long study of the mountain

landscape: the earth and climate, plants and animals, people,

history and culture. What can we learn about the past that

informs our present, and how can we envision a future that

builds on the traditions we cherish and discards those that are

unwanted or unsustainable?

What does it mean to live well in this place?

real issues, real questions, real work to be done.

Students receive credits in English, social studies, science, physical education and service learning, and also gain experience in statistics, economics, drawing, wilderness medical care, sculpture, woodworking, research methodology, culinary arts, public speaking and presentation, conflict resolution, leadership, and much more.

Located on 100 acres in Peru and surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest, our campus is our laboratory, classroom, and home away from home.

Two buildings support the mountain experience: one is elegant in its traditional simplicity while the other showcases the best of modern green-building techniques. Both are beautiful in their own right, effective in form and function, and instructional in experience. Cooking, cleaning, chopping wood and stoking fires, fixing what breaks, and enjoying the rewards are all part of the student experience

8:00 am Arrive at the parking area, greet your friends and walk in on the river trail.

8:20 Morning meeting in the Clearing: the student leader for the day shares a reflection on the morning walk, asks for announcements, and shares the agenda for the day.

8:30 Chores: everyone breaks out to clean and care for the campus. You are on wood crew this week…hauling, splitting, and stacking wood for next winter.

9:00 This week the group is looking at forestry management practices and this morning we meet with a consulting forester to work on our property inventory.

12:00 pm Lunch: After a long, crisp morning in the woods, fresh bread and hot soup never tasted so good. (The student lunch crew returned early to prepare the meal.)

12:30 After doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, we have a few minutes to sit by the fire, update our morning field notes, and read a short article before the afternoon block.

1:00 We split into three groups this afternoon: your group is working on our research project on small-scale sustainable agriculture, while the other two groups split off to work on building a research platform near the beaver meadow and to do a forest transect, recording forest composition and historical artifacts.

3:00 Afternoon meeting in the Clearing: the student leader shares the highlights of the day, announcements, and selection of tomorrow’s leader of the day takes place.

3:15 Walk out along the river path, making a quick detour to check on the beaver lodge.

3:30 Hop on the bus for the ride back down to town, thinking about your assignment: dinner with your elderly neighbors and a conversation about their childhood in Vermont. oh, and eight hours of sleep so that your brain is awake tomorrow!

A DAy in your Life At the MountAin CAMpusM

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AiLy

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Place-based Curriculum

• Active, field-based learning: we’ll spend as much (or more) time in the woods, streams, fields and farms as we do inside a building

• Relevant and useful knowledge: What are the factors that influence the distribution, dispersion, and patterns of interaction of the species in our bioregion? How do humans influence these interactions and patterns, and vice versa?

• Real work, professional skills: How to con-duct a professional interview, present your work to a large audience, run a transect, dis-sect an argument, use an axe, bake a perfect loaf of bread.

• Real people, real community, real responsi-bility: we heat our building with the wood we cut, we cook the food we eat, we clean the buildings we use, we take care of the people we learn with and learn from.

Wilderness Expeditions and Solo

• Each semester, we will venture out on several expeditions ranging from day trips to weeklong wilderness adventures. Most of these trips will be in small groups, including a solo experience toward the end of the semester.

• The emphasis of these trips will range from camping skills, risk management, and emergency medicine, to leadership and teamwork, natural history, reading and journaling, exploration and fun.

A sense of place, a sense of community, a sense of self...

A sense of wonder and purpose

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only

the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to

teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

AppLiCAtion AnD ADMissionThe semester at the Mountain Campus is designed to serve a range of motivated stu-dents who show commitment to Burr and Burton’s mission of responsibility, integrity, and service.

Motivation

Applicants must demonstrate a willingness to work hard for themselves, for others, and for a good cause; examples may include (but are certainly not limited to) personal work-project descriptions, service records, academic record, or job references.

adventurousness

Applicants must demonstrate a willingness to take responsible risks, try new things, reach out to others, and engage in the uncomfort-able; examples could include such things as hosting an international student in your home, hiking a portion of the Long Trail, starting or joining a new club at school.

Persistence

Applicants must demonstrate a desire to see things through to completion. Grit, determi-nation, and perseverance after failure are all el-ements of persistence; examples could include long-term projects or achievements, trying

out and playing for team sports, years of work learning a musical instrument or skill.

coMMitMent to coMMunity

Applicants must demonstrate a willingness to engage with all members of their community; examples could include occasions of putting others before yourself, making decisions that benefit the community first, living out the values of responsibility, integrity, and service.

The Mountain Campus application is avail-able to current freshmen sophomores, and juniors. Applications for both fall and spring semesters are due by mid-February. Eligible students will be selected through a modified random process and notified of the results in early March.

All application materials are available on the Burr

and Burton website at www.burrburton.org/Mountain Campus Program and in the School and College Counseling office in the

Seminary Building.

credits

• Students who attend a semester at the Mountain Campus will receive CP level credits in English, social studies, and science, as well as a general-level credit in physical education and 1/4 of the Service Learning graduation requirement.

• The Mountain Campus curriculum is taught and assessed in an interdisciplin-ary, project-intensive manner. Assess-ment and feedback are frequent, focussed on skills, understandings, and actions. This approach allows for differentiation among students from a range of grades with a variety of skill sets, learning styles and interests, while holding all students accountable to universal learning objectives, participa-tion and performance criteria. Credits are awarded on a pass/fail basis accom-panied by detailed evaluation of the student’s educational experience.

Hours

Regular weekly hours will be from 8:00 am until 3:30 pm Monday through Thursday, and 8:00 am to 1:00 pm on Friday. Additionally, each semester there

will be numerous day trips and overnight expeditions with extended hours.

terM LengtH

• Each semester is approximately 15 weeks in length, slightly shorter than at the main campus.

• The fall term starts on the same day as the main campus and ends just before the winter holiday. Students enrolled for the fall term will also be encouraged to complete a January internship or independent academic study.

• The winter/spring term starts approxi-mately one week after the start of the second semester on the main campus, and ends in late May.

otHer coMMitMents

Because of the intense nature of this program, including the sometimes extended hours, enrollment at the Mountain Campus is a full-time, semes-ter-length commitment. Students will not be able to play sports, join the play/musical cast, or participate in other regular school extracurricular offerings during the semester. While we cannot make exceptions to this policy, we will work with students and families to

resolve unpredictable conflicts and time constraints during the semester.

transPortation

Due to local zoning permits and in keeping with our mission, students will largely be required to travel to and from the Mountain Campus by bus. A bus will run from Burr and Burton’s main campus to the Mountain Campus and back every day with limited, en-route stops. The bus will leave the main campus at 7:45 am every day, returning in the afternoon by approximately 4:00 pm Monday through Thursday, 1:30 pm on Friday.

coLLege and career considerations

The Mountain Campus program is designed to be an academically and personally enriching experience for college or career-bound students. Colleges and employers are seeking young adults who show a willingness to step off the beaten track, who embrace challenge, who have the confidence and ability to think critically and creatively, and who back up their thinking with action. The Mountain Campus works to build these capacities and experiences every day.

soMe essentiAL inforMAtion

In a world of complexities, uncertainties, and improbabilities, we need a new generation of active citizens. Individuals with equal parts curiosity, compassion, and confidence who can as easily lead as they can follow. People who don’t shy away from adversity and who own and learn from their mistakes. We need citizens with a vision of a more sustainable future and the passion and persistence to make it happen. This is what education is for.

If we could create a new paradigm for learning in the 21st century, what would it look like? How should it feel and sound? What are the ways of thinking, the habits of mind, that we should be teaching for? Creativity, compassion, grit, and a positive mindset. Open your mind to the possibili-ties.... At the Mountain Campus, we are hard at work bringing these visions to life.

What is education for?

Burr and Burton Academy mountain campus

3067 Hapgood Pond RoadPeru, Vermont 05152

main campusPO Box 498, 57 Seminary Avenue

Manchester, Vermont 05254

802-362-1775

Ben Freeman, Mountain Campus Director bfreeman@burrburton.org

The adventure begins!