TA News

Thetford Academy’s half-day environmental studies and outdoor education course attracts students who want to take their learning beyond the classroom. The course, which meets for two full blocks each afternoon, is taught almost entirely outdoors. Utilizing TA’s 295-acre campus and the adjacent Thetford Hill State Forest, students learn by doing – and by reading and writing about the natural world.

Rachel Carson, one of the environmentalist movement’s most influential writers, wrote her book “A Sense of Wonder” more than three decades ago. Today, Carson’s words still resonate: “Wonder springs from the simplicity to admire what it discovers, whether the beautiful, the unexpected, the unfamiliar, or ultimately the inexplicable.” In class, TA’s environmental studies students read Carson’s book and wrote about how nature inspires their own sense of wonder.

The result is a class compilation of writings entitled “Our Sense of Wonder,” and includes appreciations as unique as the student authors themselves. In her piece “Small Town, Little Hill,” sophomore Sarah Marshia reflects on her life in small-town Vermont: “As I get older, I have gained a deeper appreciation for my small town. It has so much to give. Dandelions spread happiness and firewood keeps our home warm in the chilly months. The sugarwoods are a particularly special place in Vermont.”

Other students reflect on first deer, a favorite climbing tree, or the unique friendship of a beloved dog. Lilian Miller ’26 shares her appreciation for the brook that runs behind her house, “In my mind I can draw a detailed map of this brook, showing where the sand changes to clay, or when the water gets still and dark from the pine needles dropping in, or when it gets fast and cold and flows over the round rocks stripping them of their green algae.”

To quote Rachel Carson again, “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” We agree.