UW Doctor of Education Student is Wyoming’s First National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow

Over the summer, Reva Lobatos -- a Wyoming educator of 22 years who is earning a Doctor of Education in learning, design and technology from the University of Wyoming -- accomplished a first for a Wyoming educator.

Lobatos was selected as Wyoming’s first National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow, allowing her to go on an 11-day expedition to Greece and Turkey July 8-19 with National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions experts and bring global travel experience, stories and geographic learning back to her classroom, she says.

The fellowship is a collaboration between the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions and was founded by Sven-Olof Lindblad to honor Gilbert M. Grosvenor, chairman emeritus of the National Geographic Society, who supported pre-K-12 educators and promoted geography education across the U.S. and Canada for decades, the fellowship’s webpage says. The fellowship is a two-year commitment that includes deliverables such as outreach events and student action projects.

The fellowship selects teachers from throughout the U.S., its territories and Canada each year and pairs them with other teachers, Lobatos says. This year’s cohort included 36 teachers from the U.S. and Canada. Where the educators travel is based on their applications. Lobatos, a K-5 computer science teacher at Aspen Elementary School in Riverton, was paired with a teacher from Maui for the expedition to Greece and Turkey, where the focus was culture and storytelling.

“The expeditions were donated in perpetuity to the society by Lindblad Expeditions’ founder and board co-chair, Sven-Olof Lindblad, in 2006 to mark Grosvenor’s 75th birthday and to honor his service to the enhancement and advancement of geographic education,” a release from the fellowship says.

National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions focused on getting the fellows to locations where they could meet local people and experience their real lives.

“It’s less of a tourist destination and more of an actual expedition to get to know the culture,” Lobatos says.

One cultural experience -- visiting a woman’s house in Leros, Greece, meeting her family and making pastries on the patio -- has stuck with Lobatos. Eventually, Lobatos learned they had similar stories -- both women have children who recently became adults and were leaving home. For Lobatos, this life transition is what led her to pursue her Ed.D. online through UW to further her education and stay relevant and interesting to her students who have been “born into technology.”

For Lobatos, a 2025 recipient of the National Education Association Foundation’s Horace Mann Award for Teaching Excellence, her approach to education involves being a lifelong learner; expressing to her students that they are important; staying relevant in regard to technology; and showing students the world is open to them.

“I teach in a very rural area, and a lot of the kids here don’t really get the opportunity or even have the idea that they can travel someday,” Lobatos says. “Also, they don’t always know that there are other people in the world who are different from them but also end up being so much more similar. And so, for me to travel and get these perspectives firsthand, and then bring that back into my classroom and teach my students to have a global mindset --that’s really the goal for me.”

Lobatos and her teaching partner also are waiting to hear back on a grant for a collaborative classroom project that will trace the water systems from Wyoming’s mountains to the ocean around Maui. The geographically distant classes will meet using Zoom, and National Geographic MapMaker, a geographic information system, will be used for the project.

“A legacy I guess that I hope to leave behind once I’m done with this whole education gig is just that I kept trying to learn more so I could bring that all back to my students,” Lobatos says adding, “I mean, there’s nothing we can’t access as far as technology is concerned.”

For more information about UW’s Ed.D. in learning design and technology, visit www.uwyo.edu/uw/degree-programs/learning-design-technology-edd.html.

For more information about the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship, visit https://nationalgeographic.org/learn/educators/grosvenor-teacher-fellows.