As part of the North of Sixty° (http://n60.co) project, two members of the Learning Technologies Media Lab at the University of Minnesota recently spent two weeks in Alaska visiting schools in both the Northwest Arctic Borough and on Kodiak Island. While there, they met with teachers and students, as well as community members who could speak to the history and culture of the region. They captured interviews from elders and others in these communities and are sharing these videos online to help educate students worldwide about life in these communities.
The mission of North of Sixty° is to create a global tapestry of video stories that weave together both the ecological and cultural history of northern communities worldwide, helping preserve traditional knowledge and document how climate and other changes are impacting these communities. The project is collaborating with classrooms from around the globe, including schools in Alaska, Russia, Norway, Canada, and Finland. These schools are being provided with mobile technology kits and an online learning environment to scaffold students in the process of capturing, editing, and sharing video stories from their communities.
The North of Sixty° project is led by Dr. Aaron Doering (http://chasingseals.com) at the University of Minnesota, who has more than a decade of experience dogsledding and pulking within the circumpolar Arctic, and working with communities there, while sharing knowledge online via adventure learning environments that have reached millions of students worldwide. Doering will be leading an expedition in April across Baffin Island in Canada that is tied to the North of Sixty° project. During the expedition, six explorers will pulk from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung in Nunavut. They will also visit schools and interview teachers, students, elders, and others in both communities, and provide regular online updates about their journey that will be synched with educational activities for K-12 classrooms.
The mission of North of Sixty° is to create a global tapestry of climate stories, weaving together the history and culture of Arctic communities worldwide and preserving the voices and ecological knowledge of generations.
