Aside from the obvious safety and environmental impacts, shipping traffic can lead to a number of other problems. These include:
The ACNV research team partnered with northern-based community organizations and individuals to conduct the community mapping workshops. Community research associates raised awareness about the project and recruited research participants at public events and in high-traffic locations (e.g., community meetings, flea markets).
Connecting Communities
Northern Voices Online brings together the unique voices of Northerners to share their stories about their connections to the land. The project is an important step in building a more equitable and inclusive understanding of the Arctic, one that can be used as a tool to address challenges that are impacting local communities such as climate change, reduced sea ice and increased marine vessel traffic.
The ACNV research team adopted a collaborative, community-based approach that involved northern- and southern-based researchers throughout the entire research process. This was designed to support a “co-learning” experience, which has been shown to result in stronger research outcomes (see Fig. 1).
Community mapping workshops were held in each of the 14 participating communities across Inuit Nunangat. To ensure that participants had a meaningful and relevant experience, each workshop was opened with a prayer led by an Elder. In addition, each participant was asked to provide a short self-introduction including their name, gender, age, hobbies and family and what they considered the most important environmental issues facing their community. They were then asked to sign a consent form that included their preference for anonymity or credit.
The training and community mapping workshops were co-facilitated by a southern-based researcher and a community research associate. The community research associates were recruited from each community and trained in mapping and data collection methodologies. Each community was provided with a set of map templates that were printed and laminated for use in the workshops. Prior to the community mapping workshops each template was carefully read aloud by the southern-based researcher and the community research associates to determine whether the questions were easily understood, non-technical and relevant to the community. If necessary, the question phrasing was revised accordingly.
During the community mapping workshops, communities were asked to identify key areas of interest where marine vessels could have an impact on their environment and activities. These areas were then marked on maps by the community research associates. Communities were also asked to identify key opportunities related to improved tourism opportunities, economic development and job creation as a result of increased marine shipping.
Supporting Students
Students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing need more than just academics. They need support to develop social skills, confidence and communication skills. That’s why Northern Voices Online offers weekly, one-hour sessions led by trained oral deaf educators and coaches to help children and their families.
In the communities of Pond Inlet, Sachs Harbour and Tuktoyaktuk, a unique project is bringing together youth to share their perspectives and experiences on the surge of shipping activity in the Arctic. The first of its kind, this initiative is a forum for Inuit voices as the Canadian government sets forth proposals for low-impact shipping corridors.
The project engaged local youth as co-researchers and training them in mapping workshop facilitation and data collection methods. These youth, known as community research associates, then recruited 133 Inuit and Northern community members to participate in community mapping workshops, focus group discussions and interviews. They were guided by southern-based team members to consider inclusion criteria for workshop participants, such as their knowledge of marine and land environments, expertise in their field of practice and ability to effectively communicate with other community members.
As a result of the engagement, there has been a shift in student perceptions and attitudes about the impact of shipping on their lives and on the future of the region. For northern voices online , students in the upcoming class of 2022 were much more likely than the current class to find the scenario where only first-year students live on campus and continuing students earn online unappealing. Continuing students were also more likely to find a hybrid flexible model appealing and less likely to prefer fixed blocks of study.
As the new semester gets underway, the Federal Reserve is kicking off a series of webinars to highlight key lessons learned from this community development work. Register today to hear directly from the Fed’s experts about topics of interest, including:
Fostering Student Engagement
The work that teachers do with students – in class and beyond – matters, but it’s not always easy to foster meaningful engagement. Incorporating active learning strategies that place student voice at the center of learning and that support student agency can help. These strategies might include a brief share at the start of class that asks students to consider a key question, share responses to a short passage or quote, or take time to reflect on the previous day’s learning. This type of short-format activity prioritizes student voice, places students at the heart of learning and sets the stage for the day’s lessons.
Student choice has also been shown to support student engagement. In one study, participants were asked to complete a survey about their experiences with a school-based project. Those who were given the opportunity to choose which tasks they completed, and at what level, showed significantly greater levels of engagement than those who did not. Ultimately, this group also performed better on the tasks they were assigned (Grzegorek et al., 2004).
While some teachers worry that students will not respond well to having choices in their classrooms, others make an effort to make the process clear. Ms. R’s class, for example, uses a warm-up problem that asks students to vote for the context they would like to work on. She initially worried that her students would not appreciate the ability to select their own problems, but after two weeks of using this strategy, she was pleased to find that tardies remained low and engagement remained high.
Another approach to supporting student engagement involves building community connections. This may be done by encouraging students to connect with each other via social media, or through the use of a course hashtag or room that allows for collaborative discussions. Additionally, it is important to include events or opportunities on campus or in the community that are of interest to your students in the syllabus or by bringing these into the classroom.
In the ACNV project, for example, community research associates worked alongside southern-based university researchers to raise awareness about the project and recruit participants. This approach allowed for a richer, more collaborative research experience and enhanced the participation of northern and Inuit communities in research.
Enhanced Education Outcomes
Despite a lack of formal education and a low participation rate in school, many Indigenous students from remote communities have the potential to succeed in schools. However, in order to thrive they must be fully engaged. Through a combination of virtual and face-to-face sessions, Northern Voices Online helps students from kindergarten to grade 12 engage in their lessons and develop the skills to succeed as they move forward with their lives.
For many youth, the most important lesson they learn at school is how to speak in their own language. This is why a key component of the Northern Voices Online curriculum is learning how to communicate in their own home languages and participate in community activities and events with their peers from around the world, including students at other schools. The program also includes a series of workshops for teachers on how to support student voice and facilitate learning through conversation.
The ACNV research project was created in direct response to the need for Inuit and northern voices to be included in policy discussions surrounding Arctic shipping – particularly in light of the increasing volume of marine vessel traffic caused by the reduction in sea ice and climate change [2]. To achieve this goal, the ACNV research team employed a collaborative research approach that involved local residents throughout the entire research process. Southern-based university researchers partnered with Inuit and northern community members in all stages of the research, which is known to result in stronger research outcomes.
In addition to this, the ACNV research team incorporated participatory mapping methods into the workshop structure. Participatory mapping enables participants to identify the areas of their community that are most meaningful to them and highlight issues that are of concern, such as environmental concerns (e.g., ship-induced changes in the formation of sea ice and wildlife habitat destruction), travel routes that are most critical to them, and opportunities for economic development and science based employment.
As part of the workshop, the community research associates partnered with the research team to raise awareness about the ACNV project and its goals, as well as to identify potential research participants in their respective communities. They did so by displaying posters at public events and in high-traffic locations, such as community meetings or flea markets; posting information on social media group pages (many of which were closed); and inviting people to attend a research presentation in Iqaluit.