UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Arctic is filled with picturesque scenery and communities of people closely connected to the land and its history. Like many areas of the world, it’s also a region threatened by climate change. But the Arctic is especially vulnerable, with its temperatures rising four times more quickly than in lower latitudes.

Ayse Akyildiz, a doctoral student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, recently returned from a research training trip to the Arctic, during which she and the other participants learned more about the region and the complex challenges it faces in a warming world.

The theme of the program — called the International Graduate School on the Emergence of Innovative Blue Economies in the Arctic — is closely tied to Akyildiz’s research, which explores the impacts of climate change on food security and migration of people in the Arctic, and specifically in Alaska.

During the trip, the participants — who came from several institutions and specialize in different disciplines across the Arctic countries —  listened to presentations about a range of subjects, including food security, infrastructure, renewable energy and how Inuit life is changing. They also learned and practiced oceanographic sampling techniques and met with Indigenous community members.

In addition to learning new practical skills, Akyildiz said the trip also gave her personal perspectives that she wouldn’t have experienced otherwise doing research in an office.

“I got to see the emotion on people’s faces as they talked about their experiences and struggles — for example, the trauma from being forced into residential schools,” she said. “I got to see the northern lights, feel the mud of the tundra and witness the colonialism of the landscape. It helped me connect to these communities and feel their problems at a very deep emotional level, not just intellectually.”

Guangqing Chi, professor of rural sociology, demography, and public health sciences, said her participation in the program illustrates the educational mission of the Environmental Demography Network (EDeN) — a research group founded by Chi and dedicated to understanding the complex interactions between humans and their environments — and the POLARIS project, a multi-institution effort led by Penn State that is working toward building a resilient and equitable Arctic.

“Our EDeN team, with the transdisciplinary POLARIS project as an example, emphasizes the integration of research with education and community engagement,” Chi said. “Providing students with praxis opportunities — a process in which doing, learning and critical reflection informs each other and collectively become one — is an effective approach to prepare students for tackling the pressing social, environmental and health problems.”

The trip began in Kuujjuaq — a predominantly Inuit village in the Nunavik region of Quebec, Canada — where attendees listened to talks and met with Indigenous community organizations, businesses and regional government representatives. They then boarded CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker ship via helicopter, which took them through Ungava Bay for 10 days.

The main theme of the trip was for participants to learn more about the region’s potential for “blue economies,” which Akyildiz described as economic activities involving oceans, seas and marine resources, such as fishing, aquaculture, deep-sea mining and coastal tourism.

This involved learning more about the impact of current economic trends and public policies, how climate change affects food safety and security, and the social and environmental challenges of adapting to increasing temperatures and more extreme weather.

“In the circumpolar north, the availability of and access to marine resources are vital for the well-being of the communities,” Akyildiz said. “Decisions around blue economies require prioritizing the needs of Indigenous communities and uplifting their voices in research, policy and decision-making.”

While her expertise lies in social science, Akyildiz said she appreciated the opportunity to mingle with and learn from researchers in other disciplines, such as practicing techniques for gathering samples and specimens from the ocean and its floor.

For example, participants learned how to use a box corer, which is used to take samples from the bottom of the ocean at depths of more than 1,300 feet. The samples then were analyzed for contaminants such as microplastics or to examine how different animals are mixing the ocean floor. They also gathered zooplankton, which are important to the Arctic food map, and sampled water from different depths to analyze its chemical properties.

Akyildiz said this type of transdisciplinary collaboration is essential for solving problems currently facing people in the Arctic.

“Indigenous people in the Arctic depend heavily on the land for food security, which is an example of how solving a social problem also requires an understanding of natural systems, because the people and land are so highly interconnected,” she said. “Becoming more familiar with the terminology and processes that natural scientists use was like learning to speak another language, which is essential for this type of work.”

Taken together, Akyildiz said all these components were essential to the main goal of the trip: helping scientists understand the complexities and systems currently in place in the Arctic so they can help build a better future.

“It’s important for us to understand the natural and social realities that are already there, because without that understanding, we can’t imagine the perspectives of Inuit communities,” she said. “Now, we have a much better contextual understanding of the region, which will be super important as we work with Indigenous communities to build toward a better future.”

This program was offered as a joint initiative of the WAGE Circumpolar Partnership and the Sentinel North program at Université Laval.