PCAPS Comms summer project: Do Norwegian high schoolers learn about polar research?

This Northern Hemisphere summer, our PCAPS Communication Fellows, Linn Bolin Haakenstad and Amanda Skogsjordet, will investigate how polar research is taught across high schools in Norway. Norway is an Arctic country and we believe that it is important for students to learn about the consequences of climate change in the polar regions, especially considering 9% of the Norwegian population lives above the Arctic circle. The project will take place over two months, and we will see how polar research is taught in high schools all over the country. 

Picture of Linn teaching. Photo credit: Johannes Tobiassen Langvatn.

During the past year, Linn has also been working as a teacher in different high schools in Oslo, Norway, where she taught math, science and physics courses. She saw that though some of the learning objectives in the different subjects tended to include topics like climate change, weather, and sustainability, these objectives were often quite broad, in order to allow teachers to decide which scenarios to focus on. A good example of this was when the students learned about regression. Here, teachers typically use weather data, to see how temperatures have changed over decades and to discuss the regression models in a real-life context. Linn saw this as an opportunity to research if there is any specific focus on polar regions in the Norwegian high school education system.

Students in Norwegian high schools are very aware of climate change in general. High schools in Norway heavily focus on sustainability, weather and climate. A good example of this are the thematic weeks held at some high schools, such as Sustainability Week, held at Mailand Videregåendeskole (Mailand High School) in Oslo, where students learn about how to choose a more sustainable way of living and why it is important to do so. Given this type of format, there may be a possibility to hold Polar Weeks in high schools in Norway, helping to increase awareness of the importance and implications of polar research among younger generations. 

Picture from Sustainability Week at Mailand Videregåendeskole. Students in this picture are gathering around youth politicians, who were present during the week to talk about what the different political parties will do to help create a more sustainable way of life. Photo credit: Linn Bolin Haakenstad

In PCAPS, we are committed to finding opportunities to increase engagement opportunities in polar research for early career researchers as well as for students. By engaging a younger audience, we can spread awareness about the need for environmental forecasting and observations in polar regions. Young people are creative and approach problems in a unique way. Inspiring them to be a part of polar research may be a good way to tackle climate change in polar areas.

During the next few months, Linn will be conducting interviews with teachers all over the country. The teachers will be from different fields of study, to look at how and if polar research comes up in different courses. 

It is equally important to investigate how polar research is taught in social science subjects, as PCAPS also focuses on human and societal well-being in polar regions. Linn will therefore also investigate the learning goals in subjects like:

• Social science

• Economics

• Sociology

• History and Philosophy

• Norwegian

We are excited to see the outcome of this project. We hope there will be a lot of schools and teachers who want to participate in this project! Stay tuned for updates as the project progresses.