THE LIGHT RETURNS
EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL FOR HIGH SCHOOL
The light returns is one out of nine podcasts produced by Katrine Nyland for The Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat.
BOOK CREATOR SOM REDSKAB TIL UNDERVISNING
The light returns is a student’s book associated with the podcast of the same name. The duration of the podcast is 3:49 minutes.
The activities have been designed to focus on the investigative, experimental, and creative approach of the students to learning. The process consists of three steps:
- Preparation before listening to the podcast
- Listening to and working with the podcast
- Further work with topics and insights from the podcast
It is a good idea to hear the podcast before presenting it to the students.
Cross-curricular – languages and science
- The students acquire a fundamental knowledge of midnight sun and polar darkness, with the only natural light coming from northern lights, stars and the moon.
- They obtain a general understanding of the importance of light for life around the Icefjord and north of the Arctic Circle.
- They practise their skills in communication and collaboration.
We recommend that students work in small groups, pairs or individually. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed. Keep in mind that your best friend is not necessarily the one you collaborate best with. Working together is about working together and not just being together.
BOOK CREATOR SOM REDSKAB TIL UNDERVISNING
The light returns is a student’s book associated with the podcast of the same name. The duration of the podcast is 3:49 minutes.
The activities have been designed to focus on the investigative, experimental, and creative approach of the students to learning. The process consists of three steps:
- Preparation before listening to the podcast
- Listening to and working with the podcast
- Further work with topics and insights from the podcast
It is a good idea to hear the podcast before presenting it to the students.
Cross-curricular – languages and science
- The students acquire a fundamental knowledge of midnight sun and polar darkness, with the only natural light coming from northern lights, stars and the moon.
- They obtain a general understanding of the importance of light for life around the Icefjord and north of the Arctic Circle.
- They practise their skills in communication and collaboration.
We recommend that students work in small groups, pairs or individually. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed. Keep in mind that your best friend is not necessarily the one you collaborate best with. Working together is about working together and not just being together.
The light returns
The students meet the Icefjord Centre in four pictures: summer and winter, the Kangia glacier front and the framework of the building. On page 6-7 there is a text and three videos showing the erection of the Icefjord Centre.
In class you can talk about:
- What the Icefjord Centre is.
- What the purpose of an institution like the Icefjord Centre is.
- What it looks like around the centre.
- The difference between summer and winter, where you live as well as in Greenland.
The students should clarify what they already know about Greenland before starting work on the podcast. In this podcast focus is on light and darkness in Greenland but you may have worked with some of the other podcasts or in other ways acquired knowledge that can be activated in advance.
On page 8 there is a link to Google Maps. Here the students can try to locate the Icefjord Centre on the map.
You can also experiment with letting them find the places mentioned in the podcast, so that they get an idea of where they are situated. These are the places:
- Ilulissat
- Seqinniarfik/Holms Bakke
Furthermore, on page 8 there are four questions to help the students get going. Here are suggestions for a few more:
- What do we know about polar darkness and midnight sun?
- What do we know about natural sources of light?
- Which language is spoken in Greenland?
And a couple of tasks in connection with the map:
- Give the students time to try to calculate the distance from the Icefjord Centre to Holms Bakke
- Talk about the height of Holms Bakke, and let the students think about and give reasons for why the return of the light is celebrated at exactly that spot.
Page 9 is intended for answers. The students are free to use whatever form of expression they prefer. Some possibilities in Book Creator:
- make a model/a drawing by hand, take a picture of it and insert
- find pictures in Book Creator about Greenland and insert them. The pictures can be complemented with explanations in words.
- record an audio file telling what you know
- – or a combination of the above
On page 10-11 you find a map of Greenland, with six red markers. Let the students place the markers where they know towns or settlements in Greenland. They can write the name of the town or settlement in the field next to the marker.
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast The light returns. On page 12 an introduction to the podcast is given followed by a short instruction. Clicking the picture on page 13 will start the podcast.
It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups. After listening to the podcast, the students could spend some minutes talking about what they just heard.
On page 14-15 the students are to make a summary of what they heard in the podcast. They may do this in various ways:
- write a text
- record an audio file
- make a model/drawing
- something completely different that they are used to with note taking methods and summaries
- – or a combination of the above
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for a joint review in class where the students’ work on pages 14 and 15 is discussed. The aim is to prepare the students for making their own reference books that they can revisit during work with the podcast. In this reference book the students should explain the meaning of the concepts and keywords from your discussion – by means of text, sound, pictures, drawings or a combination of these.
You could begin by asking the students to name the concepts and keywords they heard in the podcast. Then you can add those mentioned below, central to the podcast and important for further work.
- Traditions – January 13 is a very special and important day to Greenlanders in Ilulissat, as they have a tradition of welcoming the Sun. Everyone who can and wants goes to Holms Bakke to greet the Sun with this song: “Seqernup qungujulluni ninarput nuilaaraa”/ “The Sun rises, smiles towards our country”. Afterwards the celebration continues with coffee and cake. They can now look forward to bright and warm days.
What is a tradition, and what other traditions do you know?
Do you know other traditions where natural phenomena are celebrated?
- Holidays – Christmas and Easter are holidays from Christianity mentioned by Lisa. Although January 13 is important to Greenlanders in Ilulissat, the Christian holidays mean a lot too.
Which other holidays do you know?
Do you know of holidays from other religions than Christianity?
- The Sun – the star in our solar system. Without it life as we know it on Earth, would not exist.
In Ilulissat students make suns out of paper, which they hang up in the classroom to celebrate the return of the Sun on January 13.
How do you imagine the Earth would look like if there was no sun?
Would we be able to exist without the Sun?
Will the Sun ever burn out?
- The midnight sun – a natural phenomenon found at both the Arctic and the Antarctic Circle where the Sun for weeks does not go down.
Lisa tells that there is no time of day to consider; you eat when you are hungry, and go to bed when you are tired. You live as nature prescribes.
What would you do if you did not have to live by the clock in your everyday life?
How would that fit into the life you are living now?
The following concepts are not taken from the podcast but are necessary to solve the tasks.
- Prose – a written form of expression that does not use rhyme, verse or a fixed rhythm. Prose thus is not tied to a definite form or style. The opposite is poetry that often follows a certain rhythm or uses rhyme.
- The solar system – has the Sun as its star. The solar system consists of eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They all circle the Sun in their own orbits. At the same time as they circle the Sun, they also rotate on their own axis. Every time the Earth has rotated once on its axis, a day has passed.
- Equidistance – the distance in height between the contour lines on a map. Orienteering maps usually have 2.5 or 5 m contour intervals depending on how hilly the country is. If the contour lines are close to each other, the area is steep, while it is less steep if they are farther apart.
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
The students work with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, in order to gain an understanding of why there is polar darkness in winter and midnight sun in summer north of the Arctic Circle.
On page 18 an introduction to the video on page 19 is given. Let the students read this first, and then watch the video.
The two questions in the black speech bubbles you can talk about in class. Here suggestions for a few more:
- Has it been known always that the Earth circles the Sun?
- What is the effect of the inclination of the Earth’s axis on
- day and night?
- the seasons of the year?
Find more information about the solar system here.
Now the students work with light. On page 20 the difference between when polar darkness reigns and when the light returns, is described. Also, the nature of light is explained.
On page 21 four pictures show midnight sun, northern lights, night sky and polar darkness. Let the students read the text and talk with their neighbour about it and the pictures.
On page 22 links are given to four home pages dealing with the Sun, midnight sun, northern lights and polar darkness. Let the students visit these pages, and then answer the questions on page 23. Three boxes are meant for keywords.
We recommend a joint review in class over pages 20-23. This process gives the students the opportunity to let information emerge and to add new knowledge of the concepts.
The task here is to make an instructional video, intended for the intermediate level. The video shall explain why the Sun peeps out on January 13 in Ilulissat, and why people meet at Holms Bakke. In solving this task the students will use what they learned from working with the previous pages of the book.
Requirements for the video:
- It should last between three and five minutes.
- It must contain information about the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
- It must contain information about why the Sun appears on January 13 in Ilulissat.
The task is explained on page 24, and on the next page a frame is ready for the video.
Insertion of video, see instruction 5 here.
The students work with the song Seqernup Qungujulluni, which they find in Greenlandic and English on page 28-31. They are to analyse the song and retell it in prose form. The resulting version is inserted on page 26-27. It is up to the students whether they use pictures, record the song as an audio file or something completely different.
The retelling is presented to the rest of the class. Afterwards time should be spent on feedback in the form of positive criticism. See the section Evaluation for more information about this.
The song in Greenlandic and English
Make sure that the settings for feedback are positive criticism. The students should be supported in assessing: what is good – and what might be done better. Find more inspiration in Austin’s Butterfly.
The idea with this is not necessarily to make new products but for the students to discover and work with this positive criticism. You could, though, choose to allocate time for further work with the products, so that the students might use the feedback for changes and improvements.
If you intend to work with some of the other podcasts from the Icefjord Centre it would make sense to save the students’ Book Creator books so that they may be reused.
The podcast The light returns was made for the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat by Katrine Nyland.
Graphics by Oncotype.
Teaching material for the podcast has been produced by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted.
The teaching material The light returns is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY. The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “The light returns by the Icefjord Centre Ilulissat” is credited as the source.
The students meet the Icefjord Centre in four pictures: summer and winter, the Kangia glacier front and the framework of the building. On page 6-7 there is a text and three videos showing the erection of the Icefjord Centre.
In class you can talk about:
- What the Icefjord Centre is.
- What the purpose of an institution like the Icefjord Centre is.
- What it looks like around the centre.
- The difference between summer and winter, where you live as well as in Greenland.
The students should clarify what they already know about Greenland before starting work on the podcast. In this podcast focus is on light and darkness in Greenland but you may have worked with some of the other podcasts or in other ways acquired knowledge that can be activated in advance.
On page 8 there is a link to Google Maps. Here the students can try to locate the Icefjord Centre on the map.
You can also experiment with letting them find the places mentioned in the podcast, so that they get an idea of where they are situated. These are the places:
- Ilulissat
- Seqinniarfik/Holms Bakke
Furthermore, on page 8 there are four questions to help the students get going. Here are suggestions for a few more:
- What do we know about polar darkness and midnight sun?
- What do we know about natural sources of light?
- Which language is spoken in Greenland?
And a couple of tasks in connection with the map:
- Give the students time to try to calculate the distance from the Icefjord Centre to Holms Bakke
- Talk about the height of Holms Bakke, and let the students think about and give reasons for why the return of the light is celebrated at exactly that spot.
Page 9 is intended for answers. The students are free to use whatever form of expression they prefer. Some possibilities in Book Creator:
- make a model/a drawing by hand, take a picture of it and insert
- find pictures in Book Creator about Greenland and insert them. The pictures can be complemented with explanations in words.
- record an audio file telling what you know
- – or a combination of the above
On page 10-11 you find a map of Greenland, with six red markers. Let the students place the markers where they know towns or settlements in Greenland. They can write the name of the town or settlement in the field next to the marker.
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast The light returns. On page 12 an introduction to the podcast is given followed by a short instruction. Clicking the picture on page 13 will start the podcast.
It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups. After listening to the podcast, the students could spend some minutes talking about what they just heard.
On page 14-15 the students are to make a summary of what they heard in the podcast. They may do this in various ways:
- write a text
- record an audio file
- make a model/drawing
- something completely different that they are used to with note taking methods and summaries
- – or a combination of the above
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for a joint review in class where the students’ work on pages 14 and 15 is discussed. The aim is to prepare the students for making their own reference books that they can revisit during work with the podcast. In this reference book the students should explain the meaning of the concepts and keywords from your discussion – by means of text, sound, pictures, drawings or a combination of these.
You could begin by asking the students to name the concepts and keywords they heard in the podcast. Then you can add those mentioned below, central to the podcast and important for further work.
- Traditions – January 13 is a very special and important day to Greenlanders in Ilulissat, as they have a tradition of welcoming the Sun. Everyone who can and wants goes to Holms Bakke to greet the Sun with this song: “Seqernup qungujulluni ninarput nuilaaraa”/ “The Sun rises, smiles towards our country”. Afterwards the celebration continues with coffee and cake. They can now look forward to bright and warm days.
What is a tradition, and what other traditions do you know?
Do you know other traditions where natural phenomena are celebrated?
- Holidays – Christmas and Easter are holidays from Christianity mentioned by Lisa. Although January 13 is important to Greenlanders in Ilulissat, the Christian holidays mean a lot too.
Which other holidays do you know?
Do you know of holidays from other religions than Christianity?
- The Sun – the star in our solar system. Without it life as we know it on Earth, would not exist.
In Ilulissat students make suns out of paper, which they hang up in the classroom to celebrate the return of the Sun on January 13.
How do you imagine the Earth would look like if there was no sun?
Would we be able to exist without the Sun?
Will the Sun ever burn out?
- The midnight sun – a natural phenomenon found at both the Arctic and the Antarctic Circle where the Sun for weeks does not go down.
Lisa tells that there is no time of day to consider; you eat when you are hungry, and go to bed when you are tired. You live as nature prescribes.
What would you do if you did not have to live by the clock in your everyday life?
How would that fit into the life you are living now?
The following concepts are not taken from the podcast but are necessary to solve the tasks.
- Prose – a written form of expression that does not use rhyme, verse or a fixed rhythm. Prose thus is not tied to a definite form or style. The opposite is poetry that often follows a certain rhythm or uses rhyme.
- The solar system – has the Sun as its star. The solar system consists of eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They all circle the Sun in their own orbits. At the same time as they circle the Sun, they also rotate on their own axis. Every time the Earth has rotated once on its axis, a day has passed.
- Equidistance – the distance in height between the contour lines on a map. Orienteering maps usually have 2.5 or 5 m contour intervals depending on how hilly the country is. If the contour lines are close to each other, the area is steep, while it is less steep if they are farther apart.
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
The students work with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, in order to gain an understanding of why there is polar darkness in winter and midnight sun in summer north of the Arctic Circle.
On page 18 an introduction to the video on page 19 is given. Let the students read this first, and then watch the video.
The two questions in the black speech bubbles you can talk about in class. Here suggestions for a few more:
- Has it been known always that the Earth circles the Sun?
- What is the effect of the inclination of the Earth’s axis on
- day and night?
- the seasons of the year?
Find more information about the solar system here.
Now the students work with light. On page 20 the difference between when polar darkness reigns and when the light returns, is described. Also, the nature of light is explained.
On page 21 four pictures show midnight sun, northern lights, night sky and polar darkness. Let the students read the text and talk with their neighbour about it and the pictures.
On page 22 links are given to four home pages dealing with the Sun, midnight sun, northern lights and polar darkness. Let the students visit these pages, and then answer the questions on page 23. Three boxes are meant for keywords.
We recommend a joint review in class over pages 20-23. This process gives the students the opportunity to let information emerge and to add new knowledge of the concepts.
The task here is to make an instructional video, intended for the intermediate level. The video shall explain why the Sun peeps out on January 13 in Ilulissat, and why people meet at Holms Bakke. In solving this task the students will use what they learned from working with the previous pages of the book.
Requirements for the video:
- It should last between three and five minutes.
- It must contain information about the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
- It must contain information about why the Sun appears on January 13 in Ilulissat.
The task is explained on page 24, and on the next page a frame is ready for the video.
Insertion of video, see instruction 5 here.
The students work with the song Seqernup Qungujulluni, which they find in Greenlandic and English on page 28-31. They are to analyse the song and retell it in prose form. The resulting version is inserted on page 26-27. It is up to the students whether they use pictures, record the song as an audio file or something completely different.
The retelling is presented to the rest of the class. Afterwards time should be spent on feedback in the form of positive criticism. See the section Evaluation for more information about this.
The song in Greenlandic and English
Make sure that the settings for feedback are positive criticism. The students should be supported in assessing: what is good – and what might be done better. Find more inspiration in Austin’s Butterfly.
The idea with this is not necessarily to make new products but for the students to discover and work with this positive criticism. You could, though, choose to allocate time for further work with the products, so that the students might use the feedback for changes and improvements.
If you intend to work with some of the other podcasts from the Icefjord Centre it would make sense to save the students’ Book Creator books so that they may be reused.
The podcast The light returns was made for the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat by Katrine Nyland.
Graphics by Oncotype.
Teaching material for the podcast has been produced by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted.
The teaching material The light returns is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY. The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “The light returns by the Icefjord Centre Ilulissat” is credited as the source.
