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Erin Kunisch
Scientific advisor
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
erin.kunisch@uit.no
Educating a new generation of Polar scientists in a cross-disciplinary way is a core goal of the Nansen Legacy. For this endeavor, the project arranges intensive courses in which topics of interest to all Nansen Legacy early career scientists are addressed from different angles and fields of science.
Arctic Ocean functioning –
Interdisciplinary perspectives from geology to ecosystems
The first Nansen Legacy interdisciplinary intensive course for PhD students and post docs was held at UiT’s field station in Skibotn 2-7 February 2020. Participants included 19 lecturers from six Nansen Legacy institutions, and 18 students from nine Nansen Legacy institutions. The course was arranged into four overarching themes: advection, stratification, sea ice, and ecosystem – one theme per day. Each theme was presented from different disciplinary angles from several lecturers. Throughout the course, students also worked in groups, building a conceptual model in which their own research was coupled with the research of the other members of the group. The course led to valuable cross-disciplinary discussions, generating new research ideas between NL scientists, and hence serving also as a seeding bank for new interdisciplinary collaboration.
Polar Front –
An interdisciplinary, research-based course in oceanography on a cruise to the Barents Sea
For May 2020, the Arctos research network and the Nansen Legacy project had planned an intensive course during a research cruise to the Northern Barents Sea. The key idea behind the course was to compliment the Nansen Legacy programme by carrying out a detailed characterization of the Polar Front while educating a new generation of polar researchers in cross-disciplinary ecosystem research by using new enabling technology.
Due to covid-19, the course had to be postponed to spring 2021.
Multi-factor experiments in marine science –
Data and analysis
In 2019, the SCOR Working Group 149 released a Best Practices guide to design and analysis of multi-driver experiments. Subsequently, they have designed a 1-day course, including group work, introductory videos, and real-world examples to help provide practical guidance and reduce the anxiety associated with experimental work. The goal of this Nansen Legacy course is to provide an introduction to the Best Practices behind multi-driver experiments and introduce researchers to a decision-support tool for conducting meaningful and manageable experimental studies.
Arctic marine biogeochemistry –
Introduction to the cycling and impact of elements in the physical and biological environment of the Arctic Ocean
Biogeochemistry studies chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes that govern the elemental composition of the natural environment, and is therefore a truly integrative and cross-disciplinary field of science, very much in the spirit of the Nansen Legacy. In this four day course 13 PhD and postdoctoral fellows received an introduction to the role of the Arctic Ocean in the global biogeochemical cycle, ocean acidification, the use of biogeochemical tracers for oceanographic studies, land-ocean coupling, and the intricate interplay between Arctic organisms and their physio-chemical environment.
Due to covid-19, the course had to be held digitally.
Polar Front –
An interdisciplinary, research-based course in oceanography on a cruise to
the Barents Sea
In May 2021, the Arctos research network and the Nansen Legacy project
conducted an intensive course during a research cruise to the Northern Barents Sea. The key idea behind the course was to compliment the Nansen Legacy program by carrying out a detailed characterization of the Polar Front while educating a new generation of polar researchers in cross-disciplinary ecosystem research by using new enabling technology. The course attracted 15 early career scientists from Norwegian, UK and US universities with widely ranging interests from remote sensing, ocean physics to marine mammal acoustics. During the research cruise, the students acquired experience with using a wide range of tools and sampling approaches, and studying interconnections between different components of the living and non-living parts of the Barents Sea.
Illustrate your science –                                             A hands-on introduction to graphical design in science             Graphical abstracts, infographics, one-slide posters for digital conferences – the way scientific results are presented nowadays requires increasingly design and illustration skills. This is why the Nansen Legacy organized a one-week intensive course on how to illustrate our science. The course was led by the visual communications specialist, Pina Kingsman. Sixteen Nansen Legacy researchers attended the course and produced visually attractive illustrations of their work.
