As the crow flies, Richard Cooper, an Arlington High School junior, was not all that far from his usual environs when he took the final exam in one of his courses during a long weekend early last month. Maybe 35 miles or so.

But alone in the forest and burrowed deep into the makeshift shelter he had built from sticks and leaves, with a foot of snow carpeting the bare woods around him and the temperature plunging to 5 degrees in the long winter night, he was certainly way outside his normal comfort zone.