Norwich in Summer

Norwich comes alive in summer. The campus opens up to students doing fieldwork in Vermont forests, hiking sections of the Long Trail, running drones over river basins, digging into community archives, and spending a week learning to hack ethically on a college campus.

All summer, Norwich hums. Brown bag research talks, camps, classes, and events welcome locals, current students, and students from other universities. The library and archives stay open. And just outside the door, Vermont’s mountains, trails, and rivers are waiting.

Students will wade into Vermont bogs and wetlands this summer, identifying species across the food web, running their own field studies in actual ecosystems.

This summer Norwich is launching something new. The Partridge School of Outdoor Learning takes courses entirely outside, six place-based, hands-on courses rooted in the Vermont landscape surrounding campus, designed to take students directly into the parks, rivers, forests, and communities that make Vermont what it is.

Courses range from sketching Vermont’s changing landscape on Paine Mountain, to flying drones over flood plains, identifying species in wetlands and meadows, walking through Hope Cemetery reading the stories carved in granite, and practicing leadership on sections of the Long Trail.

Hope Cemetery in Barre is one of those places most people drive past without knowing what’s inside. Students in Public History in the Field spend time there, walking among granite sculptures carved by the stonecutters who made Barre famous. Students immerse themselves in history within the places themselves, learning to read a landscape the way a historian does.

In Psychology of Leadership, Prof. Sean Beebe puts it simply: "There are beautiful areas not far from campus that most students have never seen. Summers in Vermont are the best time to explore them. Students spend an hour on Mondays with the concepts, then Tuesday afternoon living them. Trails near campus first, then Vermont state parks, then sections of the Long Trail."

In Art and Landscape, students begin each session with a historic painting or photograph of a Vermont landscape, then hike to that exact location on Paine Mountain or in the Northfield Town Forest to see how it has changed. They document what they find through landscape sketching, leaf rubbings, and photography, learning to see Vermont the way artists and historians have for centuries.

Students don’t have to arrive knowing anything about drone mapping or ecological field research or Vermont’s environmental history. Just an interest and the willingness to develop the skills.

Partridge School of Outdoor Learning — Summer 2026 Courses

• Writing & Inquiry in Public Contexts — WRIT 110
• Art & Landscape: Walking Vermont’s Environmental History — FA 250 Psychology of Leadership — PY 210
• Eco Detectives: Methods in Field Research — BI 299 / ES 299 Public History in the Field — HI 260
• Drones in BIM: Mapping, Modeling & Surveying — EG 299

Courses run through August. Enroll now online.

Camp and Courses

Norwich also hosts a range of camps for high school students throughout the summer.

The Cyber Immersion Camp brings students as young as seventh grade to Norwich for a week of hands-on cybersecurity, coding, and digital forensics. Mornings in the computer lab, afternoons hiking, rock climbing, and paintball. Spots are still open. Sign up online.

The OSINT Academy puts high school students in the world of open source intelligence, the tools and techniques used by cybersecurity analysts, military intelligence, law enforcement, and investigative journalists. Students learn to collect, analyze, and act on publicly available information, including how AI is used to detect events before they happen. July 12-17, with scholarships available. Sign up online.

The Future Leader Camp is nine days of military-style leadership training for high school students, led by Norwich cadets. Early mornings, rappelling, wilderness survival, overnight camping. Three sessions starting June 27. Spots still available. Sign up online.

The OSINT Academy takes that curiosity somewhere unexpected. In one week, high school students learn what open source intelligence is and how analysts use it across cybersecurity, military intelligence, law enforcement, and investigative journalism. They learn to collect, verify, and act on publicly available information, and how AI is being used to detect events before they happen. Register here.

Summer academic courses run all season, online and on campus. Smaller classes, more personal attention, one course at a time. A chance to go deeper into something that matters to you. Still time to enroll. Find courses at norwich.edu

Get to know Vermont this summer! The mountains, rivers, and trails are right there. Swimming holes, local towns, sections of the Long Trail. The campus hums alongside all of it.
Summer here looks a little different every day. Field research, camps, classes, community. Vermont in its best season, and a campus fully alive in it. There’s room for anyone who wants to be part of it.

Partridge School of Outdoor Learning

Summer Camps

Summer Academic Courses