Voices of the Sea Ice: engaging an Arctic community to communicate impacts of climate change

<p>The predominantly Inupiat people of Utqiaġvik, Alaska are among those who will be most impacted by<br>climate change and the loss of Arctic sea ice in the near future. Subsistence hunting of marine mammals<br>associated with sea ice is central to the Inupiat way of life. Furthermore, their coastal homes and<br>infrastructure are increasingly subject to damage from increased wave action on ice-free Beaufort and<br>Chukchi Seas. While the people of this region are among the most directly vulnerable to climate change,<br>the subject is not often discussed in the elementary school curriculum. Meanwhile, in many other parts<br>of the world, the impacts of climate change are viewed as abstract and remote. We worked with fifth<br>grade children in Utqiaġvik both to educate them, but also to engage them in helping us communicate<br>to rest of the world, in an emotionally resonant way, the direct impacts of climate change on families in<br>this Arctic region.<br>The team consisted of a scientist (Lipson), an artist (Reasor) and an outreach specialist (Erickson) of<br>Inupiat heritage from a village in Alaska. We worked with four 5th grade classes of about 25 students<br>each at Fred Ipalook Elementary in Utqiaġvik, AK. The scientist gave a short lecture about sea ice and<br>climate change in the Arctic, with emphasis on local impacts to hunting and infrastructure (with<br>interjections from the local outreach specialist). We then showed the students a large poster of<br>historical and projected sea ice decline, and asked the students to help us fill in the white space beneath<br>the lines. The artist led the children in making small art pieces that represent things that are important<br>to their lives in Utqiaġvik (they were encouraged to paint animals, but they were free to do whatever<br>they wanted). We returned to the class later that week and had each student briefly introduce<br>themselves and their painting, and place it to the large graph of sea ice decline, which included the dire<br>predictions of the RCP8.5 scenario. At the end we added the more hopeful RCP2.6 scenario to end on a<br>positive note. The artist then painted in the more hopeful green line by hand.<br>The result was a poster showing historical and projected Arctic sea ice cover, with 100 beautiful<br>paintings by children of things that are dear to them about their home being squeezed into a smaller<br>region as the sea ice cover diminishes. We scanned all the artwork to make a digital version of the<br>poster, and left the original with the school. These materials are being converted into an interactive<br>webpage where viewers can click on the individual painting for detail, and get selected recordings of the<br>children’s statements about their artwork. This project can serve as a nucleus for communicating to<br>other classes and adults about the real impacts of climate change in people’s lives.</p>