Burlington City & Lake
Burlington City & Lake is a place-based education program that empowers high school students as citizens, students, and community members. The program sprang from a community visioning session in 2017 with 45 stakeholders, including a dozen students and recent graduates of Burlington High School, exploring what impactful learning could and should look like.
Shelburne Farms is the lead community partner working with the Burlington School District on this innovative pilot because we believe in the power of transformative education to create a more sustainable future. Each year Shelburne Farms must raise $100,000 to cover our share of BCL staffing and program expenses.
During this semester-long program a cohort of twenty students meet in downtown Burlington, outside of the school walls, to learn about the world from right in their own backyards. Walking in natural areas, students understand the value of trees to the city and global ecosystems. On a research vessel on Lake Champlain they learn about microplastics, cyanobacteria, and the impacts of a warming planet. In meetings with city leaders and community activists, they discuss racial justice and imagine new possibilities for the city.
The program challenges juniors and seniors to use their knowledge and skills to understand places, people, problems, and possibilities of their city and to make positive change. During Covid, BCL was the only in-person learning within the District. Incorporating a sense of place and applying place-based-learning strategies provides context and relevance that abstract study rarely can.
More than 200 students of diverse backgrounds have participated in the BCL semester. From the start, the program has been intentional about accessibility so all students feel a sense of belonging in the program. Friendships with peers and mentorship with community mentors are integral to the learning experience. Faculty encourage and support students to follow their dreams, exploring big questions in a real-world context. Focused on key themes: Sense of Place; Community and Identity; Civic Engagement; Social Justice; and Sustainability - students dive deeply into subject areas of interest where they can make real and meaningful impact.
In Their Own Words...
“I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, but it has meant so much to me to learn with such a diversity of people in this class. I truly think that in terms of my capacity as an empathetic, aware human being I have grown so much because of this.” - BCL alumni
“There are some classes… where you can get a good grade without truly investing yourself in the material, but at BCL if you do the bare minimum it’s lame. And nobody really does. The environment is really amazing for learning…everyone cares, and wants to learn.” - BLC student
“Without a doubt the BCL experience was the high point of [my daughter’s] 13 years of school. At BCL — which she attended without an individual aide — the uniqueness that [she] brought to the group was celebrated, and she was respected, valued and fully included. This created an atmosphere in which [she] felt safe to take academic and social risks…. As a result her learning took off.” - BCL parent
“My daughter was bored in her sophomore year before the BCL semester. BCL pulled her out of this… and helped her to understand how to embody the role of a learner, and to feel connected to what she was learning and who she was learning with. It really was an awakening for her, and in talking with other parents, this effect wasn’t limited to my daughter.” - BCL Parent
