UW hosts summer school in Iceland

UW is part of an international cooperation, which organizes annual summer schools. Each year we visit one of the partnering countries and learn about their approaches on "smart shrinking" as a development approach for de-populating regions. "smart shrinking" is an approach that accepts depopulation and employs it actively to create smaller but better living places. This year UW is the hosting country. The group, which consists of seven UW students in the Coastal Communities and Regional Development master's program, Matthias Kokorch academic director, and 24 students from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland, are currently travelling in north-Iceland, visiting small municipalities.

 

"We spent the first day in the classroom to learn from each of the countries about regional development and demographics. On Tuesday we traveled to Lake Myvatn and visited the power plant Krafla and the new visitor centre Gigur. These two visits gave us some good ideas about renewable energies in Iceland and also the community development at Myvatn. Interestingly enough, Gigur turned a former hotel into a place of education, research, and information, that serves both, local interests and that of visitors. After a visit to the geothermal fields around Námafjall we probably had the best view for a lunch break, seeing the lake and the geothermal activities in the area." - says Matthias.

 

"Of course we stopped at Góðafoss on our way back to Akureyri and finally got our group picture. Not an easy task to get 37 people and a waterfall on a picture." - says Matthias.

 

 

Thanks a lot for the warm welcome of the University of Akureyri, and the excellent guest lectures and presentations from Albertína Elíasdóttir (SSNE), Ottó Elíasson (Eimur), Hildur Vésteinsdóttir (Landsvirkjun) and the team of Gigur and the environment agency of Iceland at Lake Myvatn.

 

We look forward to following their adventures over the next two weeks on UW's Instagram (@uwiceland) and Facebookaccounts.