Thoughts on Education, the Training of Arctic Scientists and Arctic Research - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 320

of an educational strategy in the context of a sustainable economy should be to enable the
general population to make informed decisions on the way they live in relation to their en-
vironment. Thiswouldenable themtomakeeducated choices onthetypesofgovernmental
policies they would support at election time.
Ongoing adult education using mass media, such as television, magazines, newspa-
pers and the Internet, are all readily available. It is bewildering how much high-quality in-
formationisavailableonsuchwebsitesasthoseofNASA,NOAAandTED.TheInternetis
also now being used to make available “massive open online courses” (MOOCs). Another
recent example is the web-based Snowy Owl Talks, a collaboration between the University
of the Arctic (see the forthcoming discussion) and GRID Arendal (a Norwegian foundation
that works with UNEP to support and facilitate environmental decision making). Could
some mechanism be used to organise these fine resources into narrative themes aimed at
maintaining and updating the level of environmental knowledge reached at the time of
school orcollege graduation? Aresidual problem that remains is finding ways to entice and
engage the public in using these resources.
3. Primary and high school needs of Arctic indigenous communities : In much (but
not all) of the Arctic, specialists who deliver regional programmes (including the conduct
of scientific research) are rarely indigenous to the Arctic. This is particularly evident in
Canada. When the Arctic Council was being negotiated in the mid-1990s, I spent some
time supporting Mary Simon, who was at the time Canada's ambassador for Denmark and
for circumpolar affairs. Mary is an Inuit leader from Northern Québec. She has spent most
of her life working for organisations concerned with the rights and well-being of Inuit in
Canada and in the circumpolar Arctic. It was from Mary that I first learned a sobering stat-
istic: Only about 25% of Inuit schoolchildren in Canada graduate from high school.
Mary mentioned that statistic several times to me during those years, particularly
whenever I was carried away by the needs of Arctic science. It was something that troubled
her a great deal. About 10 years later, Mary was leading a national Canadian Inuit organ-
isation (the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami). In 2006, she launched an initiative that resulted in an
accord being signed in 2009 between Inuit organisations and regional educational agencies