As the leaves change to a beautiful array of yellows, oranges, and reds, the night comes quicker and temperatures drop. Semester 67 looks forward to using the wood stoves for warm and cozy nights among cabin mates. The day after returning from our backcountry trips, we had an unusual Sunday morning activity: woodstove lessons! Everyone grew extremely excited to finally learn how to use the woodstove in order to keep our cabins cozy.  Our semester community gathered at Campfire Circle before Read More

A lot of Chewonki life is go go go. But sometimes it's nice to take a break. Every weekend I look forward to going out to my phenology site to get some me-time and spend an hour looking out at the Maine coast. The first weekend of the semester each student was assigned a spot on the neck with a view of the water. The purpose of this spot is to go back week after week and notice changes and similarities (this is New England so it looks different each time), while recording observations and Read More

My day started with a walk to the farm, bright and early at 6:30 in the morning. It was still dark out and the sun was just beginning to poke through the clouds when my cabinmates and I arrived at the farm. I immediately started on my morning power walk down Chewonki Neck road to the eastside pasture. I arrived to a beautiful sunrise and set off on taking care of the cows. When I was done, I wished the cows a good day (as I had every morning for the past two weeks) and went on my way. I went Read More

There’s something special achieved through Chewonki’s focus on outdoor classroom settings and nature-based experiential learning. While there’s no contradiction between the two, academics and the outdoors rarely overlap in conventional high school settings; something that has heightened my appreciation of this facet of life at Maine Coast Semester. While I had anticipated outdoor classrooms before arriving, expecting to experience the occasional lecture outdoors or salt marsh field lab, the Read More

Each Saturday morning a faculty member stands up and asks if any students are willing to cook Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch. This requires a crew of about eight students to cook meals for the rest of the semester. I liked cooking so the first time I raised my hand for the Saturday dinner crew. I was one of the chosen students and we were told to meet at the kitchen at 4:30.  I walked up to the kitchen nervous, because this was one of the first weeks and I wasn't close with any of the Read More

Sitting on the Chewonki van, squished between Lilly on my left, diligently working on her eighth friendship bracelet of the week, and Shoshana, peacefully napping to my right, I begin to think back to just five days ago. I recall sitting in the same seat, wondering how my backpacking trip to the Bigelow mountain range would play out. What would my role in this lively group of 11 people be? How would we manage summiting three different peaks all while carrying five days worth of food and all of Read More

Approaching the third week on campus only meant one thing: it was time for morning chore rotation. My friend Lilly and I were both hesitant to give up our beloved kitchen chores, knowing we would miss setting up breakfast (get first dibs on any of the delicious pastries), putting away leftovers, and excitedly waiting for after dinner clean up to see if Russ (one of the amazing cooks) smuggled us any homemade chocolate chip cookies behind the counter!  It was Tuesday afternoon when they Read More

Almost two weeks ago exactly, we each set out on our backcountry expeditions, five groups of students and faculty leaders each parting ways to set out into the backcountry for five days straight of camping and the great outdoors. I was lucky enough to be put into the West Grand Lake group, affectionately called Wiggle by the ten of us students and our two trip leaders, Grace and Max. We all agree that our trip was decidedly the best out of all of them (but so does every other trip), and I still Read More

It was a cold night on Fort Island, the previous rainstorm leaving a slight mist in the air. Our sea kayaking group gathered in a circle under the stars, and we quietly listened to the radio for any indication of the next day’s weather. We were hoping to end the trip with our longest, most exciting day yet- rounding Pemaquid Point- but as our trip leader Conor mentioned many times, it was weather dependent. This path exposed us to the open ocean, so any sort of wind or rain would create waves Read More

Every day here at Chewonki is different. Monday and Wednesday are full days of classes, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday there is either a work program or field lab in the afternoon. Weekends are much more unscheduled, with lots of downtime, and some semester-wide programming. Every morning at 6:55 we gather as a semester and then head off to our chores. After chores we have breakfast, then morning meeting, and after morning meeting we go to our classes.  Classes are different every day. Read More