Only the most qualified

Faculty

Traveling School faculty create magic in and out of the classroom! More than just educators, they are mentors, role models and guides along the journey of a Traveling School semester. Our faculty are passion-driven, and go above and beyond to ensure students have the support and resources they need to thrive.

Madeleine Colvin

Program Coordinator & Lead Teacher

Base Camp: Seattle, Washington
Fall Semester, Western US 2022

Madeleine was born and raised in the Seattle area, on Duwamish land, and feels most at home in a light drizzle. She graduated from Pomona College in 2016 with a B.A. in International Relations. After college, she lived in China for four years, where she conducted research in tourist villages and led experiential study abroad semesters for American high school and college students. Her time in China, especially time spent living in villages, provided an education beyond anything the formal education system could offer: it was there she learned about the importance of community, how to slow down and drink tea, the life cycle of rubber trees, and how to sharpen a pencil with a machete, among many other things. Madeleine has also worked in a variety of outdoor leadership and environmental education settings in the U.S. She recently graduated from the University of Washington with a M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction and a graduate certificate in Education for Environmental and Community. 

Madeleine strives to teach for joy and justice. She is passionate about learning that is cross-cultural, place-based, and culturally sustaining. In addition to her work in education, Madeleine is also enthusiastic about baking bread, drinking tea with loved ones, cooking meals that take several hours, identifying new plants, self-publishing zines, and spending time with her 86-year-old grandmother.

Becky Fitzpatrick

Logistics Coordinator & Lead Teacher

Base Camp: New Mexico
Fall Semester, Western US 2022

Becky fell in love with the landscapes and organisms of the western United States when she studied Natural History and Ecology at Prescott College in Arizona. After attaining her bachelor’s degree, Becky worked as a wildlife technician on a bear nutritional study in Yellowstone National Park, a trophic cascade study in Waterton Lakes Park, and a bison management study in Montana. She then began teaching wildlife science programs to high school students in the Yellowstone area, which grew into a love of teaching and place-based outdoor education.

Becky returned to the southwest and worked for a conservation corps building trail and working on invasive species projects. Becky does her best to balance indoor and outdoor work and to include the use of both her brain and her body. This balance has led her to work as an outdoor educator with Outward Bound, a Wilderness Ranger in the southern Rockies, and in the classroom with the High Mountain Institute, the Alzar School and teaching Natural Science for The Traveling School.

She currently spends her time in New Mexico with her hands in the dirt building soil in her backyard and her intellect at work mapping Accequias, New Mexico’s community built irrigation ditches. Her love for wild places began young, and has continued to grow the more time she spends mentoring and teaching students within it. She has found no better teacher.

Biz Osborne-Schwartz

Academic Teacher

Base Camp: Salt Lake City, Utah
Fall Semester, Western US 2022

Biz Osborne-Schwartz (she/her) is a citizen of the world who’s lived on three continents and was raised in sunny southern Florida. She has worked for four years as an outdoor guide with middle, high school, and college-age students all over the rocky mountain west, pacific coast, and Alaska. Biz has taught at Montessori schools in two states, been a first responder as an EMT, and was briefly in the Peace Corps in Madagascar.

Biz grew up in Sarasota, Florida, and from there when to high school in New Delhi, India, and university at Bard College in upstate New York receiving a Bachelor’s in Biology. She was an avid athlete competing in swimming, cross country, and track & field for all four years of high school and college and even participated in two Ironmans! In her free time- Biz likes to snowboard, explore the desert, and write poems on her typewriter.

Biz currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is so excited to travel the West with amazing students this fall. This semester, Biz hopes her students get to experience amazing morning sunrises, summit high peaks, and overcome physical and personal obstacles, all while laughing and making life-long friendships on a high school semester they will never forget.

Malia Bertelsen

Academic Teacher

Base Camp: Bozeman, MT
Fall Semester, Western US 2022

Malia grew up in Bozeman where she was lucky to spend most of her time outdoors with her family. In high school she spent a semester in Southern Africa with The Traveling School which impressed upon her the importance of experiential education and the need to critically engage with our surroundings. After high school, Malia went to the University of Vermont where she received her bachelor’s degree in environmental science with a minor in math and geography. There, she gained a deeper appreciation of fall colors, maple syrup, and Cabot cheese. Malia further cemented her love for place-based learning when she spent a semester of college with the Wild Rockies Field Institute where she backpacked and canoed through the Colorado Plateau while engaging with educational themes of resilience and revolution.

After graduating from Vermont last May, Malia decided to return to her community in Bozeman and has been instructing with Montana Outdoor Science School for the past year. Additionally, she spent the last four winters as a ski instructor at Bridger Bowl and has been a math tutor for students around Bozeman since 2019. Malia will also be guiding backpacking trips on the Olympic Coast with Alpengirl this summer. She believes outdoor place-based education is one of the best ways to form a connection with the land, people around us, and can be a transformative space if we choose. In her free time, Malia enjoys skiing, trail running, floating down rivers and reading books that she seldom actually finishes.

You should know that The Traveling School did a masterful job of finding superlative instructors – ones so good that they will, without question, rank among the best of the best of [our daughter’s] entire K-12 (and probably beyond) educational experience.

John, 2018 Alumnae Parent