Anna Niia Varfolomeeva

Category: Teaching

  • What a Diverse Classroom Taught Me

    The University of Oulu recently launched its Arctic Summer Programme: a series of two-week courses for international students that explore the Arctic region through lectures, discussions, and practical experiences in Northern Finland.

    This week, I taught two lectures on Indigenous notions of sustainability and human–resource relations in the Arctic to a mixed group from two courses: Arctic and Nordic Perspectives on Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education. The students ranged from Bachelor’s to advanced Master’s level, with backgrounds from education to engineering and nursing – an inspiring but challenging mix.

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  • Teaching the Arctic in the midst of a pandemic

    Five years ago, I was preparing to teach my first Arctic-themed course.

    Spring 2020 was a difficult time for many, myself included. I had just come out of hospital quarantine after being one of the first diagnosed COVID-19 patients in my region (I’ve documented this experience here). My university was frantically switching to online teaching. For the first time in my life, I was giving lectures from my kitchen to a sea of black Zoom squares, with only the occasional student face appearing. How could I keep them interested? Why should they even care about permafrost or Indigenous identity when the world around them seemed to be collapsing?

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