Northern Connections - Engaging young people in rural Arctic societies in building sustainability across borders

The project aspires to connect and engage northern voices in a circumpolar worldview that will:

• Encourage young people to re-imagine how we channel our resources, natural and human, to make our lives better and foster imaginative ways to contribute to a sustainable future.

• Increase mutual understanding and meaningful connection, enabling young people to communicate across borders in an online school setting to learn that they face many of the same challenges.

• Develop methodologies to enable peer-to-peer connections that facilitate collaborative learning through real-life and online workshops led by researchers, professional specialists and teachers.

• Foster imagination alongside critical and creative thinking to enhance the use of arts and technology to foster imaginative solutions to global challenges.

• Deepen understanding and awareness of the contribution members of communities in the circumpolar North can make to solutions for sustainable development to tackle the climate emergency.

This transdisciplinary project brings researchers together from three universities in Norway, Finland, and Shetland (Nord Universitet Nesna Campus, University of Lapland) and UHI Shetland) to work with young people from remote and rural schools through arts, technology and science-based activities, online and in real life. It encourages young people to engage with each other across political and cultural borders to discover they face many of the same challenges in tackling the climate emergency. The project integrates art and science through collaboration and creative engagement that will expand international partnerships, develop professional skills, enhance employability and support sustainability, social inclusion, and well-being.

UArctic, Scottish Government (Scottish Educational Exchange Programme SEEP)