EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION
Polar Aspect are passionate about raising awareness and understanding of the Arctic amongst youth. We aim to inspire secondary-school pupils and university students to learn more about the Arctic, its special challenges, and the peoples who call it home.
With these goals in mind, we created the world’s only Model Arctic Council conferences for secondary-school pupils, and we also design and run Model Arctic Council for undergraduate students. These innovative experiential learning programmes bring pupils and students together to consider up-to-the-minute Arctic issues, and to hone their skills at persuasion, negotiation and consensus-building, as they play the roles of diplomats attending a simulated cycle of Arctic Council meetings. In addition to Model Arctic Council, we also visit schools and universities to offer guest teaching about Arctic issues.
Our educational work is grounded in actual practice. Polar Aspect’s Founding Principal, Dr Anthony Speca, is a secondary-school teacher at Norwich School, an Honorary Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, and an Honorary Fellow of the Scottish Association for Marine Science. He has also been an Adjunct Professor at Trent University in Canada, and the Managing Director of the UArctic Læra Institute for Circumpolar Education, an institute that he helped to establish.