About this tour
This week-long Study Tour, which goes first to Stockholm and then by night-train to Kiruna, Arctic Sweden, will provide students with a unique visit to Europe’s only inland space launch and test facility as well as a firsthand encounter with the stunning beauty and ancient mythologies of the Arctic Night Sky. It will also introduce students to cutting-edge space climate researchers, as well as to the local tensions and ecological implications of new technologies.
We will visit research labs and weather stations to get a handle on how satellites now play a vital part in climate modelling. We will hike in Abisko National Park, where nocturnal animals native to the tundra lives. We will learn of their importance to the Sámi, but also to the ecosystems around them, and of the disruption caused to their patterns of navigation by an increase in satellites and space light pollution. At the Ice Hotel, we will carve ice sculptures and look out for Northern Lights.
This Study Tour will be a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience and a very special place to hike, learn, connect, reflect and socialize.
Learning outcomes
- Understand the many forms of “extraction” occurring in Arctic Sweden – material, digital, symbolic
- Gain a hands-on experience with how human activities impact the environment, biodiversity and social dynamics of modern Arctic Sweden
- Obtain an understanding why the Arctic has become a desired arena for technological experimentation
- Appreciate the role of ideas, worldviews, and mythologies in the development and critique of new technologies
Possible activities
- Visit Stockholm’s Nobel Museum to unpack Sweden as a historic epicenter of science, extraction and technology
- Visit the Arctic Exhibit at Nordiska Museet and explore its threats to Inuit and Sámi culture
- Buy a book for our night train ride to Kiruna in Stockholms legendary Science Fiction Bokhandeln
- Get a unique tour of the Kiruna’s Space Port Esrange
- Get an underground tour of Kiruna’s LKAB Iron Ore Mine
- Visit Sámi Indigenous villages and speak to Sámi environmental activists
- Get a guided tour of the recent relocation of Kiruna
- Watch Northern Lights and hike in Abisko National Park
- Carve ice sculptures at the spectacular Ice Hotel