College of the Atlantic has been offering summer courses and workshops for close to 40 years. Our goal is to educate and inspire life-long, experiential learning through courses that appeal to both new and returning participants. Learning includes on-campus studio or lab work, informal discussions or lectures, and field trips out and about in Mount Desert Island’s picturesque Acadia National Park and the outer islands of Frenchman Bay.
Due to the bandwidth of staff and the availability of space on campus, no adult learner courses are currently scheduled for the 2023 summer. We look forward to returning to a full slate of summer programs for the 2024 season and are in the preliminary stages of scheduling adult learner courses for next summer.
Past offerings have included courses such as:
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- Field Botany: Plants of New England
- Plein-Air Watercolor Painting
- From Capture to Print: Digital Photography and Photoshop
- Life on Mount Desert Rock: Experiencing Marine Mammals in their Environment
- Bar Harbor Running Camp
- Drawing in Nature
- Learning the Ropes: Atlantic Climbing Adventure
“The location, situated next to Acadia National Park and a short walk from downtown Bar Harbor, is idyllic. Each day brought us breathtakingly beautiful vistas of sea, mountains, rocks, and forest. COA provides incredibly delicious meals, all made using fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and meat raised sustainably. The options were amazing, and I had to be careful not to overindulge!”
-Tom H.
