A School for 8th Graders Who Are Ready to Begin Their Journey
OCEAN
Sail a tall ship around Cape Cod studying the ocean.
DOWNTOWN
Launch a business and invest the profits.
MOUNTAINS
Roadtrip and backpack across America.
GLOBAL
Walk the ancient Camino de Santiago through Portugal.
FOREST
Construct an off-grid community from scratch.
For first seven weeks of school, the schooner Wonder becomes your home, your classroom, and your proving ground. Under the guidance of professional mariners, students stand watch, handle lines, navigate by chart and compass, and learn the rhythms of life at sea. Every day brings new responsibility: steering the ship, plotting positions, hoisting sails, and working as a tight-knit crew.
As the miles pass beneath the keel, we weave in the stories and science of the sea. You will read literature inspired by the ocean and conduct marine science as part of our global science project, Ocean Pi. In doing so, you will learn the basics (or expand your skill) of coding in Python, one of the most ubiquitous programming languages.
OCEAN
Voyage Around Cape Cod
DOWNTOWN
Launch a Business, Invest the Profits
The major project of this campus is operating a student-run business in downtown Fairhaven: a coffee shop and bookshop that students will launch in the spring. To prepare, students will begin by launching a pop-up business from scratch: a haunted house in downtown Fairhaven, MA. This will require planning, marketing, and creating a budget. Students will also learn to work with shop tools in order to construct the spooky sets they design.
Students return to the Downtown Campus in the spring to apply what they learned from the haunted house to creating an enduring business. Working with student mentors from Brown University who run The Underground, Brown’s student-run cafe, students will conceptualize and create a real coffee shop.
All of this will be done in the context of a downtown revitalization plan being led by Downtown Design Lab, so students will also study urban planning to understand what makes healthy downtowns tick.
MOUNTAINS
Roadtrip & Camp Across America
Following a restorative winter break, the cohort reconvenes in Key West and sets out on a seven-week expedition across the United States. This segment blends overland travel, wilderness immersion, and place-based learning. Students journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific—camping under the stars, partnering with community hosts, and spending more than half the trip backpacking through some of the most iconic landscapes in the American Southwest. More than half of this journey takes place on foot—carrying everything we need, unplugging from the noise, and learning how the land itself shapes culture, history, and identity. Students build resilience, leadership, and real wilderness skills while studying the stories of America written in both people and place.
Along the way, we trace portions of the historic Route 66, exploring small towns, desert ecosystems, Indigenous histories, and the layered story of American westward expansion. Days alternate between trail miles, journal writing, cooking together, team leadership roles, and deep engagement with both American history and natural history. Students learn to travel lightly, live communally, and read the landscapes and cultures they move through—gaining confidence and perspective with every mile.
Begin in Lisbon, shoulder your pack, and set out on a seven-week trek across Portugal and Spain. Students walk the Camino de Santiago—one of Europe’s great long-distance routes—covering hundreds of miles on foot. Each day blends physical challenge with quiet moments: stopping in small cafés, crossing rolling countryside, meeting fellow walkers from around the world, and discovering layers of history with every step.
Along the way, students learn to navigate, manage group logistics, cook together, and reflect on their journey through daily writing and group dialogue. The Camino becomes a classroom in resilience, global citizenship, and the art of intentional travel. Reaching Santiago de Compostela is not just the end of a trail—it’s the culmination of a shared journey that students will carry with them for life.
For seven weeks, students follow one of the oldest pilgrimage routes in the world—the Camino de Santiago—walking from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela. Moving entirely on foot, the group travels through villages, vineyards, farms, and medieval towns, crossing Portugal into Spain at a human pace that reveals history, culture, and landscape in a way no other journey can.
Students keep travel journals, study European history and pilgrimage traditions, and practice the art of slowing down in a world that rarely allows it.
EUROPE
Walk the Ancient Camino de Santiago
FOREST
Construct an
Off-grid Home
In this seven-week immersion, the forest becomes both workshop and classroom. Using the modular designs from Open Source Ecology’s Future Builder’s Academy, students learn to build a fully functional, off-grid micro-home—from bare ground to finished structure. Under the guidance of skilled builders, students cut timber, frame walls, wire solar systems, install rainwater capture, and construct the systems that make independent living possible.
This is not a simulation. Students use real tools, take real measurements, solve real problems, and watch a home come to life through their own teamwork and sweat. Throughout the process, they study sustainable design, regenerative materials, energy systems, and the ethics of building communities that tread lightly on the land. By the end, students leave with the confidence and competence that come from creating something solid, lasting, and entirely their own.
