Vettvangsskólar

SIT (School for International Training)

SIT (the School for International Training) is an accredited university-level institution in Vermont, USA, which has specialized in offering study-abroad programs in partnership with foreign institutions. SIT has multiple locations in many countries and offers courses during the summer as well as the fall and spring semesters.

SIT Study Abroad Programs

Each year since 2007 the University Centre of the Westfjords welcomes Study Abroad students from the School for International Training, Vermont USA. What started small with a summer course has grown in to a successful all year round partnership. Meanwhile 3 different SIT programs are visiting Ísafjörður throughout the year.

Summer Program in Renewable Energy, Technology, and Resource Economics

Every summer, SIT offers a Study Abroad Summer Program on Renewable Energy, Technology, and Resource Economics in Iceland. During the seven week long program, students from universities across the United States learn about Iceland’s energy policy and resource economics through coursework, engagement with local stakeholders, and individual research projects that they design themselves.

Three weeks of the program are spent in the Westfjords region. With its welcoming, tight-knit, and easily accessible communities and unique resource and energy needs, the Westfjords present students with the perfect opportunity to get hands-on in their learning experience. Classes in Energy Technology are thought at the University Center of the Westfjords where students learn about renewable energy and sustainability, with a focus on applying principles learned in the classroom on a small town scale.

While in Ísafjörður students stay with local host families, where they are able to learn what it is like to live in a typical Icelandic family. The family living experience is a perfect complement to students’ Icelandic lessons, providing them the chance to express themselves in an everyday setting. Host families are generally enthusiastic about the homestay arrangement and by now more than 70 families have opened their homes to SIT students. The University Centre is indeed grateful to all these families.

Semester Program on Climate Change in the Arctic

The program Iceland and Greenland: Climate Change and the Arctic was launched in 2016. The field based, semester-long program is taught on bachelor level and is offered both fall and spring semesters. The students get to see various parts of Iceland and they also do a two-week tour to Greenland. Approximately three weeks of the program students spend in Ísafjörður in local host-families. Ísafjörður resident Daniel Govoni has taken on the role as Program Director, assisted by Jennifer Smith and Alexandra Tyas, both graduates of the Coastal and Marine Management master’s program.

The newest addition – The SIT master’s program Climate Change and Global Sustainability

With this graduate program, students travel around the globe to improve their expertise on fighting climate change. The first SIT Master students arrived in August 2018 to stay for 3 month in Ísafjörður. While in Iceland students are introduced to climate science, assessment methods, and energy and climate policy. In the spring semester, students travel to the Zanzibar archipelago to explore the effects of climate change on ecosystems and human communities in the Indian Ocean region and the challenges of balancing natural resource management with the need to promote sustainable livelihoods.

Franklin University Switzerland

Students at Franklin University Switzerland engage in Academic Travel every semester as part of the undergraduate curriculum. These courses are standard semester courses with an embedded 10- 12 day field experience that enables students to get first-hand experience with the topics they study in the classroom. Since 2010, environmental science professor Brack Hale has been bringing students to Iceland as part of this program. He has been working with the University Centre of the Westfjords since 2015. The most recent iteration of his academic travel course examines the relationships between tourism and the natural environment. The group travels around Iceland and the Westfjords examining the impact tourism is having on the natural and social environments and the strategies institutions in Iceland are implementing to deal with these impacts.

During the group’s stay in the Westfjords, the students meet with different stakeholders in tourism industry, visit local sites, and engage in trail building and maintenance projects.

New York Times Student Journey

New York Times Student Journy - Iceland: Energy & Climate Change at the Arctic Circle.

Two summers in a row we have welcomed a groups of very interested US - High School students and their group leaders travelling with the New York times Student Journey. Our assistance consists in tailor-making a day long program in accordance with each groups ´ wishes and needs. The New York Times groups are visiting Iceland to learn about renewable energy and the impacts of climate change in remote arctic communities.

New York Times Student Journeys is a collaboration between Putney Student Travel and The New York Times. Putney Student Travel based in Vermont organizes educational high school programs for students traveling from the United States to Iceland.

The Icelandic Field School

Two summers in a row we have welcomed a groups of very interested US - High School students and their group leaders travelling with the New York times Student Journey. Our assistance consists in tailor-making a day long program in accordance with each groups' wishes and needs. The New York Times groups are visiting Iceland to learn about renewable energy and the impacts of climate change in remote arctic communities.

New York Times Student Journeys is a collaboration between Putney Student Travel and The New York Times. Putney Student Travel based in Vermont organizes educational high school programs for students traveling from the United States to Iceland.

CHID Summer Program in Iceland

The Comparative History of Ideas department (CHID) of the University of Washington offers a biannual summer program in Iceland, led by Dr. Phillip Thurtle, director of the CHID department. This is a cross-disciplinary study program which emphasizes the relationship between humans and nature. In Iceland, the culture and environment of the country are explored with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding in the ways that Icelanders have cultivated relationships to the land and to each other, forging a unique cultural identity in an era of global capital.

The CHID group travels around Iceland spending part of their stay in the Westfjords where they get acquainted with local culture and history, through lectures, visits to local museums as well as short field trips. The students also get some language instruction during their stay in the region.