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Maryland's Oldest Teen Adventure

Specializing in Outdoor Adventure, Environmental Stewardship, and Community Service

Nature Camp's Teen Adventure is an innovative and physically challenging four-week experience.  Focus is upon affirming individual strengths, engendering compassionate behavior, and bringing forth environmental stewardship.  Teens feel the power of tradition and community during their engaging time with their peers.

Focus is upon affirming individual strengths, engendering compassionate behavior, and bringing forth environmental stewardship. Teens feel the power of tradition and community during their engaging time with their peers.

• Weeks 1 & 4 are spent at NC Day Camps in TA in Monkton, Maryland
• TA Five-Day Trips (Weeks 2 & 3). One week is a family farm experience in Northern Baltimore County. The other week is hiking on the Appalachian Trail near Frederick, Maryland, and rafting on the Potomac River.

During these four weeks teens will be:

• Choosing outside activities of interest, assisting in Counselor-led activities, acting as that older brother or sister, helping children.
• Participating in camp service projects.
• Biking to the O'neill Farm in northern Baltimore County via the NCR Trail. Planting, harvesting, cooking, completing farm chores, and working on projects. From the farm, teens travel one evening to Lovely Lane United Methodist Church in Baltimore for Contra and Folk Dancing with the Baltimore Folk Music Society.
• Hiking and Camping in the Appalachian Trail.
• White Water Rafting.
• Acquiring new leadership and outdoor skills.

Assignment of which weeks teens go away depend upon time of enrollment, limited group size (8), and parent preference. Two trip leaders lead the small group of teenagers.

 

So... tell me more about TA...

Nature Camp's Teen Adventure is an innovative and physically challenging four-week experience. Focus is upon affirming individual strengths, engendering compassionate behavior, and bringing forth environmental stewardship. Teens feel the power of tradition and community during their engaging time with peers.

Teens need to take a break from their fast-paced, high-tech world. They need to be in an unhurried summer place where they can blossom from what we teach, as well as be with close fellow teenagers. Unlike traditional camps, teens at NC spend weekends at home with their families and friends. This is in keeping with NC's family based values.

As the four weeks of TA have a lot to offer young teens, and older teens, we have structured the weeks sequentially so each succeeding week builds upon the skills and slow pace of the preceding week. The first week of TA, the teens are at Day Camp, where they choose activities of interest, and assist in Counselor-led activities, often acting as Counselors-in-Training, as that older brother or sister. On Thursday of week one, TA's hike about five miles to Bunker Hill, along the Gunpowder River for their first overnight. The second week of TA, teens bicycle to an organic farm, via the NCR Trail. Through planting, harvesting, working on projects, carving with bone, astronomy lessons, and contra dancing, teens learn to enjoy the company of one another, and to play an important role in the stewardship of the environment. During the third week of TA, teens hike and camp on the Appalachian Trail ending with a Friday white water rafting trip. The fourth week of TA is spent at NC Day Camp where teens again join in the counselor-led activities, complete their Community Service projects, and continue to acquire new leadership and outdoor skills. Teens enrolled in two TA sessions will be at NC Day Camp six weeks, and go on two away trips.

Children just becoming a teenager feel comfortable right away as they are with teens who have been in TA before, as well as fellow teens just beginning. The TA staff and returning TA teens are very welcoming and focused on creating a cohesive group of eight teenagers (we have found eight teens to be the optimum group size). The TA experience is an important adventure in the life of a teen. Teens learn and grow in leaps and bounds, while remaining grounded in a high quality program developed with deep tradition and community ties.