Integrative Graduate
Education and
Research Traineeship

Highlight

KNR Greenland Radio Broadcast

IGERTs Interviewed by KNR Greenland Radio

Projects:

IGERT: Polar Environmental Change

Institution:

Dartmouth College

Primary Strategic Goal:

Discovery: Foster research that will advance the frontiers of knowledge, emphasizing areas of greatest opportunity and potential benefit and establishing the Nation as a global leader in fundamental transformational science and engineering.

Secondary Strategic Goal:

Learning: Build the Nation's research capability through critical investments in advanced instrumentation, facilities, cyber infrastructure, and experimental tools.

Achievement/Results

A major goal of the Dartmouth IGERT is developing substantive and ethical research partnerships with indigenous communities. Hand-in-hand with that goal is improving each trainee’s ability to communicate clearly with policymakers, government officials, and community members, particularly indigenous communities.

Trainees had a unique opportunity to practice explaining their research while speaking to a population that rarely hears directly from scientists. In August 2010, during the Dartmouth IGERT’s Greenland Field Seminar, trainees and faculty were interviewed by Henriette Rasmussen, former Minister of Education, and a well-known and popular Greenlandic radio personality at KNR, based in Nuuk, the capital. Her interview was broadcast in Greenlandic and English on January 29, 2011, across Greenland, and will be available on our website: http://igert.dartmouth.edu.

Trainees were each asked about their research on soils, aquatic biology, and ice and snow, and their concerns around the effects of climate change on Greenland. Greenlanders do not often hear directly from international scientists working throughout Greenland. It was instructive for trainees to respond and share their work with the general public in terms that were not jargon-filled.

Most scientists working in Greenland probably never speak directly to the local population. Often they fly into Kangerlussuaq, a major international science center, and fly out without ever interacting with anyone other than fellow scientists. The trainees came away from their interview with a greater sense of responsibility to the people affected by climate change, and for listening to their concerns.

Address Goals

Primary: The interview provided first-hand experience in science communication to an international audience for the trainees. The dialogue that occurred between a person of the stature of Henriette Rasmuseen and the Dartmouth trainees strengthened the position of the Dartmouth IGERT within the Greenlandic community, and provided authentic and ground-breaking exposure for the goals of the National Science Foundation.

Secondary: Rarely have international scientists responded to questions about climate change and its impact on Greenland directly to the population at large. This cross-cultural experience for trainees has enlarged their own understanding of the issues, and it has enlivened and interested Greenlanders as well.