PORTLAND — Students from Oceanside High School, in Rockland, and Watershed, in Camden, are among 13 Maine high schools that will spend a weekend in Portland as part of a Camden Conference in the Classroom project.

The Portland weekend is part of the 2023 Camden Conference on “Global Trade and Politics: Managing Turbulence” to be produced live on stage in Camden, February 17-19, and live streamed to Hannaford Hall at the University of Southern Maine, as well as to venues in Rockland and Belfast.  See camdenconference.org for details on the panelists, to register to attend in person or online, and to find out more about the education program. The Conference with a different global topic every year has historically drawn audiences from all over Maine, the US and abroad.

According to the Conference, in a news release, Joe Hennessey, an English teacher in Guilford, is excited about bringing his high school students in an elective global trade class to Portland next weekend to hear a Harvard Law professor and other experts share the latest on globalization and trade wars.

Hennessey moved to Maine from Colorado partly for the skiing. He was welcomed by the small manufacturing town in North-Central Maine and soon branched out to include world issues in his curriculum to better prepare students for the future. Awarded Maine Teacher of the Year in 2019, Hennessey contends that an increased knowledge of the world could help expand horizons and career options for his students at Piscataquis Community High School.

Guilford students will be joined by students from other Maine high schools for a total of 85, many from small towns away from Southern Maine and the coast, who are participating in the 8-year-old Camden Conference in Classroom (CCC) project. The project helps fund year-long courses on the Conference topic of the year and offers subsidies to student and their teachers to attend the Conference. This is the first that all the high school students will be in Portland, which is an added attraction for the students.

Inter-generational learning has long been a goal of the Camden Conference, now in its 36th year. High school and college students have attended various venues and always ask some of the most challenging questions. The Conference helps with content for classes at both Maine high schools and colleges. Funds to support Conference students come from various sources including specially designated Conference funds, foundations, funds from participating schools and the bequest of Meg Malmberg. Continuing education credits for teachers are earned with their participation.

Other schools participating are: Bonny Eagle High, Standish; Brewer High School; Gould Academy, Bethel; Lewiston High School; Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, Hinckley; Oak Hill High School, Wales; Oceanside High School, Rockland; Sanford High School; and Watershed School, Camden.