Educational Videos from Arctic Now Available on ARM Website

 
Published: 14 May 2011

ARM Education converted the Arctic traditional knowledge DVDs into a web-based program so they could be shared beyond the North Slope.Nearly 10 years ago, ARM Education and Outreach staff asked community leaders in Barrow, Alaska, what the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARM Program could do to support local education. Iñupiat elders asked ARM to develop a museum display on climate change and the environmental impacts in the Arctic as seen through their perspective. The community wished to share the impacts on their culture and traditions while emphasizing the importance of elder knowledge in educating youth. ARM Education honored this request by creating an interactive kiosk program entitled Climate Change: Science and Traditional Knowledge for the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, as well as DVDs for classroom distribution.

Because the value of traditional knowledge—cultural knowledge and human experiences handed down through generations—stretches beyond the local community, ARM Education converted the kiosk program into a web-based display that can be used by any classroom, any student, or anyone who has Internet access. In addition to the interactive learning program, an archive of 305 individual interviews is also available online. In these interviews, elders, hunters, teachers and scientists share their experiences of environmental changes such as thinning sea ice, thawing tundra, and delayed freezing seasons.

By sharing these videos with the world-wide audience, ARM is taking one more step to provide educational tools for students, educators, and communities beyond the ARM sites.