The Læra Institute is delighted to have taken part in the first in-person workshop of the University of Washington's (UW's) 'Co-designing Civic Education for the Circumpolar North' project, which took place in Rovaniemi and Ánar/Inari, Finland, from 10th to 14th October. We're privileged to be able to collaborate on this educationally important project, led by Jason Young, Nadine Fabbi and Michelle Koutnik of UW, and funded by the US National Science Foundation's 'Navigating the New Arctic' programme.
This first in-person workshop followed three online workshops, focused on defining the project's terms and setting out its agenda, on best practices for designing anti-colonial approaches to civic education in the Circumpolar North, and on sketching out concrete proposals for civic-education projects. Reports from the first and second workshops are available from the project website. A report from the third workshop will be published there shortly.
In Finland, we focused on building out our educational project proposals further, and on written project outputs for a special education-focused edition of the Arctic and International Relations Series published by the UW Jackson School of International Studies. We also learned much from visits to the University of Lapland and its Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi, and to the Sámi educational and cultural institutions of Sogsakk, Sajos and Siida in Ánar/Inari. It was also a pleasure to get to know one another in person, and to explore potential future collaboration.
Many thanks to the project team for a productive and enjoyable workshop. We look forward to participating in the fifth workshop coming up in the spring of 2023, and to continuing to work together in future.
