By Tess Sutherland, Community Delivery Manager, Ampere
Old Crow, Yukon is the furthest north and only fly-in community in the Yukon.
The community lies in the arms of the Porcupine River where it meets the Crow River and is the home of the Vuntut Gwichʼin First Nation (“People of the Lakes”). The migration route of the Porcupine Caribou Herd is in the nearby hills and mountains. The herd, numbering a staggering 218,000 caribou, is the only caribou herd in North America that is now at higher numbers than any previous year on record. About a month ago the local school took all of the students on a successful 4-day moose hunting trip but now is the time of year the caribou will begin to move through the region.
So what does a community delivery actually look like?
It looks like talking to everyone – whether it’s the people sitting beside you on the plane, the person you’re in line to get groceries with at the local Co-op, or the people you pass walking through town. It’s accidentally running into the Old Crow principal in the Whitehorse (capital of Yukon) airport and discussing the opportunity gaps her students face in STEAM learning. One of which is having a science lab but no science teacher. Another is having 3D printers and other education technology that no one feels equipped to teach with.
It looks like spending time out on the land because land is culture. It’s accepting a ride up Crow Mountain to see the expanse of trees and earth covered in Reindeer lichen where the caribou graze. It’s taking many, many walks through the town and not straying further afield because it’s grizzly bear season in the woods. It’s spending time on the river banks listening to the sounds of the just-forming ice floes grazing against the shore. It means being able to speak with awe and wonder about the land and waterways that you’ve borne witness to, with everyone you meet.
It looks like taking time to localize your activities. In Nunavut we teach a lesson using the micro:bit’s light sensor and talk about how arctic ocean kelp need to store sunlight when they can capture it because they will spend half the year under the ice pack getting no light at all.
Here in Old Crow we spent time walking along the river banks to identify that Arctic willow grows plentifully so it becomes the star of our same micro:bit lesson. In the face of a changing climate, rivers in permafrost zones (like Old Crow) are expected to meander and deviate from their roots as their permafrost banks melt and degrade which could have massive downstream ecological impacts. Instead, plants like the Arctic willow have expanded their ecological ranges, flourishing and growing bigger in places they never have before. The effect of this is called arctic greening which strengthens the river banks and prevents erosion. Here the lesson becomes about the incredible resiliency of the land.
It looks like co-designing all of our lessons all of the time. It means adjusting lessons on the fly based on what’s working and not working in the room. It means many hours of prep work between lessons to make sure each session builds seamlessly on the last, especially since we had the chance to teach every student in the school three times!
It means when a 9-year-old says she really, REALLY wants to learn how a button works – you change your code and your next lesson to include buttons. It means checking in with teachers and students to see how the lessons are going and incorporating their feedback. Whether it’s pivoting away from using the buzzers in the Grade 6 to 8 class because they hate the sound, to leaning into the same activity in the Grade 9 to 12 class because two students tell you, “that was pretty cool.”
When you do that, teachers tell you that one of their students accomplished something that the student didn’t think was possible for them to accomplish, “That was really an ‘aha’ moment for me and for him!”
Students in the notoriously too cool for school Grades 6 to 8 say, “wait that’s cool,” and “this is actually fun!” and the younger students in Grades 1 to 3 ask one another what they’d rate the activity out of 10 and one says, “it’s an 8.5” while the other says, “For me? 10 out of 10.”
It looks like being a part of the community for more than just the work that’s brought you there.
It’s helping the kindergarteners get ready for recess, and offering condolences for an Elder who has recently passed. It’s even about taking meetings with the First Nation, the school, and anyone in town who wants to know what you’re carrying around in that colourful big box labeled Ampere.
Community delivery looks like accepting welcome and kindness wherever it is offered. From getting a ride into town from a stranger in the airport, to listening to stories from a local Elder, to jumping on the back of a 4-wheeler (ATV) to get a ride into school on a cold morning, to listening to and learning words of the local language. Yakhaii means “northern lights” in the Gwichʼin language while Mahsi Cho means “thank you”.
To the community of Old Crow, Mahsi Cho.
Ampere’s Lifecycle
Have you heard about Ampere’s Lifecycle? It illustrates how we support learners in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities at every stage of life and learning. Our Lifecycle includes:
- Advocacy – Showing up for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities
- Mentorship – Amplifying voices and building capacity
- Production – Enabling creators and leaders
- Employment – Developing local, sustainable STEAM careers
- Resources – Providing fair access for all learners
- Education – Delivering hands-on, tech-driven learning
In Old Crow the Community Delivery Team provided Advocacy, Mentorship, Education, and Resources to local learners during their October visit!