THE ICEFJORD CENTRE

PAGE BY PAGE GUIDE – THE BOOK CREATOR “THE LIGHT RETURNS”

The students meet the Icefjord Centre in two pictures, showing summer and winter respectively.

In class you can talk about:

• What the Icefjord Centre is.
• What the surroundings around the centre look like.
• The difference between summer and winter.
• How summer and winter differ where you live.

The students see a map of Greenland. There is a marker that shows where Ilulissat is situated.

In class you can discuss:

• What you see on the map.
• How many people live in Ilulissat.
• What else do you know about Greenland and Ilulissat?
• Do you know the names of other places on the map?

The students see a map of Ilulissat. There is a marker that shows where Holms Bakke is situated. The red line shows a route from the Icefjord Centre to Holms Bakke.

In class you can talk about:

• How far is the distance from Holms Bakke to the Icefjord Centre?
• Why do you go up on a hill in order to see the return of the Sun?
• Please give the students the experience of standing on the roof of the Icefjord Centre looking down on Holms Bakke (you could use the pictures on pages 4-7)

The students see part of a world map.

The task now is to move the red marker down into the map in order to show where each student lives.

The marker is found in the white box and can be drawn into the map.

In class you can talk about:

• Where is your town or settlement situated?
• How many people live in the town or settlement where you live?
• Do you know the name of other places on the map?

Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast The Light Returns.

They start the podcast by clicking on the icon in the middle of page 14.

It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups.

Let the students spend a few minutes discussing what they have heard in the podcast

with the student sitting next to them. On page 15 the students are to make small sound recordings where they tell about the podcast. The pictures on the page will help them remember what they have heard.

Insertion of sound see instruction 1 here

The recording will now be represented by a small sound icon. This icon can be placed wherever you wish on the page. You can listen to the recording over and over again.

Review in class

It is recommended to have a joint discussion in class when the work with pages 14-15 is done. This is to make a visible review so that the students can inspire each other and can fetch/borrow words and sentences for their work with the task.

We suggest that you support the discussion by writing and maybe illustrating concepts and keywords on the board.

In class you could talk about:

• What surprised the students when listening to the podcast.
• Concepts and keywords that the students encountered in the podcast.

In the Book Creator book there are some pages with tasks connected to some of the concepts. You can add more pages yourself for other topics you discuss, other concepts and other keywords. In the text below you can find inspiration for the class discussion.

Concepts and keywords

• January – 13 January

It is the day where the light returns to Ilulissat. It is the most important day of the year. Lisa tells us that they all look forward to enjoying nature and to sailing. In the schools the children create suns and display them in the windows. From 29 November till 13 January there is no sun. Everyone, who is able to and wants to, goes to welcome the Sun on Seqinniarfik/Holms Bakke. Afterwards they celebrate with singing, eating cake and drinking coffee. 13 January is a very important day for the Greenlanders in Ilulissat.

Why is 13 January important to the Greenlanders in Ilulissat?

What day/which days are important to you?

• Christmas and Easter – two holidays from Christianity that Lisa mentions.

Even though 13 January is important to the Greenlanders in Ilulissat, the Christian holidays are also of great importance to them.

Are there other holidays that you know of?

Do you know anything about holidays from other religions than Christianity?

• Traditions – everyone, who is able to and wants to, goes to Seqinniarfik/Holms Bakke. To sing a welcome song to the Sun.

13 January is quite a special and significant day for the Greenlanders in Ilulissat, because they have a tradition where they welcome the Sun. Afterwards they celebrate with singing, eating cake and drinking coffee. The song they sing is called ”Seqernup qungululluni nunarput nuilaaraa” / ”When the Sun with a smile looks a bit over our country”. They can now look forward to light and warm days.

What is a tradition and which other traditions do you know?

Do you know other traditions where you celebrate with singing, eating cake and drinking coffee?

When do the light and warm days come to the place where you live?

On pages 16-17 the students insert their own important days or traditions. You could ask them to bring pictures from home that they can photograph and insert. They can also make a drawing of their important days/traditions. It is a good idea to talk about the pictures/drawings in class so that everyone gets a chance to tell about their own important days/traditions.

If you have a class calendar, you can write all the students’ important days/traditions in it.

Insertion of sound see instruction 2 here

Here comes the rest of the concepts.

• The midnight sun – a phenomenon of nature you can find north of the Arctic Circle, where the Sun does not set for several weeks in a row. Lisa tells us that there are no set hours to relate to; you eat when you are hungry and go to bed when you are tired. You live the way that nature dictates.

What would you do, if you were not to relate to certain set hours in your daily life?

• The Sun – the star in our solar system. Without it, life on Earth, as we know it, would not be able to exist. The students in Ilulissat create suns of paper and display them in the classroom to celebrate the return of the Sun 13 January.

Do you know any planets in our solar system?

What would the Earth look like if the Sun did not exist?

Could we exist without the Sun?

Now the students are to cut out suns and display them in the classroom, maybe in the windows. Please talk about the Greenlandic children in Ilulissat that cut out suns and display them on 13 January as a part of the celebration of the return of the light. On pages 18-19 they can take a picture of the window filled with suns and insert the photo in the book.

Insertion of sound see instruction 2 here

On pages 20 and 21 the students can write sentences or small stories using the keywords that you have talked about. They can write them, record them as a sound recording or make a drawing and insert the picture. Their products will be part of the further work with the podcast.

Insertion of sound, pictures & text see instructions 1, 2 & 3 here

Use the picture in the Book Creator book to talk about the Earth and the Sun.

Here are some suggestions as to what you can talk about in class:

• How does the Earth orbit the Sun? Notice the arrow around the Earth that shows the direction.
• Does the Sun hide and why do you say that “the Sun rises” when it actually is the Earth that is moving?
• How the dark period of the year and the midnight sun occur because of the inclination of the Earth. Notice the axis that goes through the Earth.
• If it fits with your class, have a talk about northern lights.

Experiment with globe and lamp

The students can try making an experiment with a globe and a lamp that shows how the light hits the Earth when it orbits around its own axis and around the Sun.

This experiment is to show how the rotation and inclination of the Earth is connected to the light. See the picture underneath the experiment guide.

They will need:

• a globe
• a strong lamp (alternatively a normal lamp or a flashlight)
• a stand to hold the lamp, unless you can hold it by yourself (perhaps you can organise the students in groups so they can take turns at holding the lamp/Sun)

1. Place the globe on a table and the lamp straight across from the globe.
2. Switch on the lamp so that it shines directly on the globe.
   1. Talk about what the lamp and the globe symbolise.
3. Try to turn the globe and let the students share their thoughts about what this shows.
   1. Please talk about how the picture on pages 22-23 fits with what they can observe themselves with the globe and the lamp. Perhaps have a talk about how the globe is to be turned to show the days before and after 13 January in Ilulissat.

Picture of the experiment

Now the students have worked with “The Light Returns”, traditions and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. To conclude this work they are to make a product in the form of a comic strip where we follow two Greenlandic children from Ilulissat through their day on 13 January.

On pages 24-29 there are three different pages with inserted frames. These pages are meant as suggestions as to how the students can build up their own comic strip. They can delete and add pages so that it fits with exactly their personal comic strip. (Speech) balloons, thought bubbles and statements are also inserted on the pages. These can also be deleted or altered so they fit in with the student’s product.

Here are some suggestions to elements that the students might include:

• The breakfast table conversation, maybe they talk about the big celebration that is taking place later that day.
• In school they cut out suns and display them.
• The trip to Holms Bakke, wonder what they talk about while on their way?
• The joy of being able to go outside at last and e.g. spend the night in a tent and pick berries.
• The difference between the weeks before and after 13 January.
  • Here the students could include the Sun, the stars, northern lights, the Moon
• The celebration after having welcomed the Sun. What kind of cakes do they eat?

The students can choose to make their own drawings and insert them in Book Creator, use the characters that are already in Book Creator or mix the two. If it fits with their comic strip, they can choose to add sound recordings.

When the students have finished creating their product, they are to present it later – in class and maybe for other students in the school, parents etc.

Insertion of sound, pictures and speech bubble see instructions 1,2 & 6 here

The students present their comic strips to the class.

Make sure that the framework for feedback is positive criticism. The students should be supported in assessing what is good – and what might be done better. Find more inspiration her.

Not specifically with a view to making new visual stories, but foremost to let the students discover and work with this kind of constructive and positive criticism.

If you wish to let the students make use of the feedback they have received from the class, you could reserve time for them to continue their work with their products. So that they can use the feedback they have received from each other to change things in their product.

If you intend to work with some of the other podcasts from the Icefjord Centre, it might make sense to save the students’ Book Creator book so the work they have done with it can be used again.

The podcast The Light Returns has been created for the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat by Katrine Nyland. The included graphics are developed by Oncotype.

Teaching material for the podcast The Light Returns has been developed by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted, with feedback from Leg med It.

The student’s book in Book Creator has been developed as part of the project Nutaaliorta from Kivitsisa.

The template was designed by Rikke Falkenberg Kofoed and Daniella Maria Manuel, Leg med It.

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.