Keeping students engaged with ongoing coursework from their home school
Meaningful, complex learning that impacts the world around them
Structured, community reading as a mirror for their own Hero’s Journey
Discover Term parent
Surf Term provided Matthew the opportunity to really think about the ways he learns best. He is a visual, hands-on learner who needs time to process information and not be rushed. And it made him a more curious person. He is asking WHY questions. The gift of curiosity is a special thing for anyone to have!”
Before attending, every student completes a structured Academic Goal Setting process with support from their parents. This ensures each student arrives with a clear plan for success with a narrow focus on 2–3 subjects (most often math and science, sometimes English, plus history or a foreign language).
Because time is limited (roughly an hour and half of study hall most days), it’s important for parents and schools to align expectations on which aspects of hometown school coursework should be prioritized and which academic areas do not have expectations. Narrowing the focus allows students an opportunity to accelerate their progress, with many previous students returning to their hometown school ahead in their math or science coursework.
Of course, this is not always the case. Many factors contribute to a student’s academic performance, including what subjects they focus on, how aggressively they decide to pursue their goals, and how intentionally they use their time during the program’s academic study halls.
Parents play a key role in supporting students and in aligning their pre-term academic goals in partnership with the school so that expectations are clear before the program begins.
Discover Term projects are cross-disciplinary investigations centered on real-world problems.
Rather than studying subjects in isolation, projects bring together science, social studies, ethics, design, and communication. Students investigate complex systems, experience real-world scenarios, analyze difficult decisions, and ultimately create solutions or proposals that address the challenges they study.
At Powder Term students tackle mountain-based scenarios in Project Avalanche and Project Summit. At Surf Term we focus on the unique challenges of a tropical ecosystem with Project Rainforest and Project Reef. While each project explores a different topic, they follow a shared learning structure that guides students from exploration to solution creation while exploring a variety of academic elements including:
Students learn how complex problems emerge from multiple interacting systems, and how thoughtful solutions require understanding both natural forces and human decision-making.
Learn more about our project structure and the details of each of our four signature projects in our Project Guide.
Each term, students read one Discover Term–selected book together as a cohort, practice active reading and annotation, and participate in facilitated discussions that emphasize listening, respect, and thoughtful contribution. Our students share a story that becomes a mirror for their own experience—how they show up, how they respond to difficulty, how they work with others, and how they reflect on who they are becoming.
The structure follows a predictable weekly cadence and designed to be manageable alongside outdoor programming and daily academics, and audiobook listening sessions are made available.
Learn more about the structure and the selected books in our Book Club Guide.
Our academic terms are not a vacation, they’re a rich learning and growth experience. Our students return to school with tangible skills and habits that meaningfully impact how they show up in the classroom, at home, and beyond.
To help you and your school leadership understand that growth our students leave both Powder Term and Surf Term with a comprehensive record of their academic journey.
Contrary to what you may be thinking, your child does not need to be homeschooled in order to attend one of our Academic Term programs. In fact, over 50% of our students come from traditional public, charter or private schools.
We believe these programs are chances for young people to transform and reach new potential. Helping your child’s school understand the purpose of the program and why your child wants to attend will frame it as an amazing opportunity to support.
Each school handles a 5-week absence differently. Some schools and district policies require a formal request and documentation to be completed for the planned absence. Occasionally, it may be easier for the school and family to unenroll the student for five weeks and reenroll the student upon their return to simplify attendance records. In these cases, the students still set academic goals to work towards during the program.
Our admissions team supports families in any scenario with a process and resources that make this easy. Use our School Communication Guide and follow these steps:
Our Guide for School Leaders goes even deeper into program details. And a member of the Discover Term team is also happy to connect with and talk to your school administrators with you if helpful.
No, Discover Term does not offer direct academic credit as our programs are not officially accredited by any organization. Some schools, however, will accept Discover Term coursework for school credit if presented with our program documentation, such as example student transcripts and portfolios. If course credit is needed, we recommend requesting credit approval from your school before attending and providing this documentation for support as part of the request.
Discover Term focuses on three primary areas of mastery: self mastery, physical mastery and academic mastery.
We help youth practice paving their own path to mastery by:
We’ve developed our own curriculum that incorporates a blend of Socratic coaching, guided experiences, project-based learning, and adaptive digital coursework. We incorporate core skill tools like Khan Academy, Lexia and No Red Ink, along with our own cross-discipline project learning experiences.
No, Discover Term does not do any academic testing. We use dynamic and adaptive intake assessments to tailor learning programs that place students at the edge of their learning comfort zone in each of the adaptive learning platforms we use.
No, Discover Term does not assign homework. Individual students set self-paced academic goals that they are accountable for, and there are deliverables and milestones within projects that must be completed in order to move forward. The intent is for all work to be completed during the structured academic blocks each day.
No, Discover Term is not accredited. Some schools, however, will accept Discover Term coursework for school credit if presented with our program documentation and academic resources (example student transcript and example portfolio of student work). If course credit is needed, we recommend requesting credit approval from your school before attending.
We’ve developed our own curriculum that incorporates a blend of Socratic coaching, guided experiences, project-based learning, and adaptive digital coursework. We incorporate core skill tools like Khan Academy, Lexia and No Red Ink, along with our own cross-discipline project learning experiences.
Students have daily Academic Study Hall time built into their schedules to continue any self-paced Academic Goals they set for the duration of the term. Some students choose foreign language as one of their areas of focus and bring coursework from their hometown school or use online adaptive language learning platforms. We do not offer our own foreign language curriculum, although our Surf Term program includes basic Spanish lessons as part of the experience.
Before attending, every student completes a structured Academic Goal Setting process with support from their parents. This ensures each student arrives with a clear plan for success with a narrow focus on 2–3 subjects (most often math and science, sometimes English, plus history or a foreign language).
Because time is limited (roughly one hour of study hall most days), it’s important for parents and schools to align expectations on which aspects of hometown school coursework should be prioritized and which academic areas do not have expectations. Narrowing the focus allows students an opportunity to accelerate their progress, with many previous students returning to their hometown school ahead in their math or science coursework.
Of course, this is not always the case. Many factors contribute to a student’s academic performance, including what subjects they focus on, how aggressively they decide to pursue their goals, and how intentionally they use their time during the program’s academic study halls.
Parents play a key role in supporting students and in aligning their pre-term academic goals in partnership with the school so that expectations are clear before the program begins.
Michael P., Discover Term parent