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Annual conference helps Maine high schoolers learn more about global issues

The 36th annual Camden Conference is taking place from Feb. 17-19, 2023. It's produced live on stage in Camden and is streamed to the University of Southern Maine.

PORTLAND, Maine — More than seven dozen students from 13 Maine high schools are in Portland from Feb. 17 through 19 with one common goal: to learn more about the world around them.

This weekend marks the 36th annual Camden Conference, titled "Global Trade and Politics: Managing Turbulence". This event is produced live on stage in Camden and is live-streamed to Hannaford Hall at the University of Southern Maine, as well as to venues in Belfast and Rockland. Every year, the conference focuses on a different global topic and brings in audiences from around the state and the country.

"Many of my students have told me it’s the most profound learning experience that they have because they’re able to take what they’ve learned over the course of a year, apply it to the conference, and also bring it back and produce genuine artifacts of learning," Joe Hennessey, an English teacher at the Piscataquis Community Secondary School and the 2019 Maine Teacher of the Year, said.

Hennessey said this is his school's seventh year attending as a conference member. He said the event allows his students to have more exposure to real-world applied to learning. For him, that's a big goal as an educator. 

"One of the core tenets of an effective education is to cultivate the intellect and teach people to think for themselves," Hennessey said. "There’s almost no better way to do that than to expose them to a variety of different circumstances, ways of life, and perspectives on the world and world affairs."

The 85 high school students in attendance this weekend are primarily from small towns away from Southern Maine and the coast. They're taking part in the Camden Conference in Classroom project, which has been going on for eight years and funds year-long courses about the conference topic of the year. It also offers subsidies to students and their teachers to help them to attend the conference.

For students like Samantha Goodwin, a senior at Pisacataquis Community Secondary School, the opportunity to be at this conference for the second year in a row is an exciting one. 

"I think that especially in a lot of rural areas in Maine, we aren’t exposed to a lot of the more global information. I think that becoming educated about that is really impactful," Goodwin said.

Funds to support conference students come from several places, like foundations and participating schools. You can learn more about the Camden Conference here

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