Yale’s Arctic Classroom: Learning with GeoCamp in Iceland & Greenland

In August 2018, GeoCamp Iceland hosted graduate students and professors from Yale University’s Archaia: Program for the Study of Global Antiquity for a two-week summer course that stretched across two countries — Iceland and Greenland.

Based at GeoCamp Iceland, the group explored Iceland’s extraordinary volcanic landscapes and cultural heritage through a programme designed and delivered in collaboration with their faculty leaders, Professors Joe Manning (History & Classics), Anders Winroth (History), and Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir (Humanities and Medieval Studies). Together with our local experts, GeoCamp guided the group through field lectures at sites such as Öræfajökull in Vatnajökull National Park, the lava fields shaped by Iceland’s largest eruptions, and the sagas embedded in the landscape.

The course linked Earth sciences with the humanities: paleoclimatology, volcanology, and geology were studied alongside Norse settlement, medieval history, and the Icelandic saga tradition. This interdisciplinary approach reflects our core mission at GeoCamp — to create learning experiences where natural and human archives meet, giving students a deeper understanding of how societies adapt to environmental change.

Among other highlights was the group’s journey from Iceland to Greenland, where GeoCamp Iceland facilitated a visit to the Greenland Climate Research Centre in Nuuk. There, students and professors engaged with leading experts on climatology, environmental studies, and the Greenlandic fishing industry, while exploring the legacies of Norse and Inuit settlement in one of the world’s most climate-sensitive regions.

The Yale Archaia programme remains a landmark example of how GeoCamp Iceland connects academic institutions with the living classrooms of the North Atlantic. With growing interest from universities in combining Iceland and Greenland within their study abroad and field courses, this pioneering trip continues to inspire new ways of learning — across disciplines, across borders, and directly in the field.