Back to nature

Twelve students spent the first week of summer break encountering the magic of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom on Exeter’s first Global Engagement excursion in 15 months.

“It felt really good to be going on a school trip after the year we’ve had,” Oscair Page ’22 says. “Since [everyone] on the trip had gone through a similar experience with campus restrictions, we were able to bond over this newfound relief, and that pushed us to avoid taking any part of it for granted.”

Living as environmental stewards, the students built a traditional timber-framed lean-to (in which they spent the night), took wildflower-identification walks, mountain-biked, fished, and shared stories during nightly fireside chats. The adventure, led by English Instructor Jason BreMiller and Biology Instructor Kadeine Peterson, offered students the opportunity to appreciate how the human and nonhuman worlds can thrive in concert.

“One focus of the trip was being environmentally conscious, and the fact that we were actually in nature forming a relationship with the land made that message more meaningful,” Page says. “Learning about climate change solely through a computer screen would have felt very removed, and I certainly wouldn’t be as motivated as I am now to get involved and learn more.”