The world is your classroom
Courses
The Traveling School doesn’t rely on four walls or technology. Instead, academic schedules are responsive to surroundings and opportunities that present themselves while traveling. You will engage in relevant coursework presented by your teachers, local community members and geographic surroundings. Classes are immersive and happen everywhere.
Traveling School classes are place-based. We create time and space for you to learn from your natural surroundings, the communities you travel through and the people you interact with. Curriculum incorporates primary sources, regional experts and authors, field studies and personal narratives.
Explore our courses
Honors Global Studies
In this interdisciplinary and discussion-based course, students evaluate local and global power dynamics; examine personal and cultural biases; identify systems upholding colonization and imperialism; analyze the interplay between identity, power, and privilege; and reflect on what it means to be a proactive agent of change in a globalized world.
Honors Literature & Composition
Honors Literature & Composition is designed for students to build robust reading, writing, and literary analysis skills through engaging with the diverse literature of the course area. Students read two novels, as well as short fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Honors History & Politics
Beginning with the question ‘What is history?’, the course evaluates the myths upon which certain national and global histories are founded. Students forge connections between complex concepts; assess disparate points of views; build arguments based on evidence-based claims; and ultimately move beyond the concept of history as strictly linear and temporal.
Honors Environmental Science
Honors Environmental Science begins with students exploring the nature of science, engaging in the scientific process, and studying the flora and fauna of local ecosystems in their region of travel. Throughout the semester, students maintain detailed field journals – including species accounts, sketches, observations data, questions and hypotheses – as they learn how to practice scientific inquiry and investigations.
Leadership & Life Skills
The course focuses on the transferable skills necessary to become a self-aware, effective citizen who takes responsibility for their personal and community wellbeing. As the semester progresses, each student practices being Student Leader for the day, in which they plan, manage, and communicate the group’s schedule and itinerary.
Physical & Outdoor Fitness
Traveling School semesters are filled with physical and outdoor pursuits to build confidence, scaffold leadership skills, and promote an active lifestyle. Students participate in a variety of routine workouts as well as various outdoor expeditions such as hiking, backpacking, rafting, canoeing, rock climbing, canyoneering, and more.
Curriculum
At The Traveling School, the classroom is all around you. Learning comes to life in the places you visit, from the people you meet and the stories they tell. Our curriculum connects rigorous standards-based academics to a region of the globe, creating a culturally diverse and academically sound educational experience. The Traveling School develops classes and academic experiences based on the following key components:
Differentiated classrooms provide individualized instruction to better support each student’s academic path.
Focus on primary sources including eyewitness accounts in order to identify and acknowledge bias in sources of information.
Transformative teachings incorporate structural analysis to explore important themes such as: race, privilege, indigeneity, feminism, social justice and power dynamics.
Low student-to-teacher ratio and college seminar-style classes ensure active and engaged learners.
Student-centered approach integrates creative lessons and multiple modes of learning allowing students to express and enrich their high school education in a variety of ways.
An all-female learning environment allows students to focus on academic achievement, develop leadership skills and build self-esteem in a supportive community.
Experiential, relevant and place-based units support critical inquiry and thorough questioning.
Reflective academic environment based on mutual respect, incorporating thoughtful silence and student-to-student discussion creates space for diverse viewpoints.
Discussion-based courses which are interdisciplinary in nature and connect content to students’ lives, to history and to today’s world.
Courses
The full immersion into African and South American cultures is the foundation to a semester of deep and meaningful learning experiences equaled by no other classroom in the world.
