Abstract ID: 3.9966 | Withdrawn | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

Mountain regions in the Alps and the Arctic share similarities in terms of physical exposure and impacts of accelerating climate change, while their populations, cultural traditions and living conditions are very different. These similarities and differences are brought together in the Snow2School project. The transdisciplinary citizen science project involves social anthropologists from the University of Vienna, climatologists from the University of Graz and teachers and students from two schools in Uummannaq in northwest Greenland and Eisenerz in the Austrian Alps. Citizen science is a research approach that involves the non-academic public in the production of knowledge. In Snow2School, this means that the academic team works closely with students aged 12-17, who act as junior researchers in the project. The project explores past and present snow changes and their significance for local communities in both regions. This is done using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including interviews, snow measurements and mono- and inter-disciplinary workshops, complemented by an element of online intercultural exchange. At the core of the research are historical and contemporary snow photographs, which not only visually document changes in snow patterns and enable their quantitative analysis, but also provide insights into changing human-environment relationships. The junior researchers are introduced to basic research methods and are actively involved in the research throughout the project. For example, they collect photos and stories from their communities as well as environmental data. They also meet regularly online with students from the partner school to share their experiences of snow and environmental change in another part of the world. The process of bridging different epistemologies, between social and natural sciences, and between academic and local and Indigenous ways of knowing across countries, involves many learnings and drawbacks, but also a lot of fun and growth as we go along together as a team. I will give an overview of our ongoing project and its methodology, describe the learning processes of the junior researchers in Greenland and Austria as well as the academic team, and give details about the challenges and opportunities of our citizen science approach, which also includes a strong educational component.