This is an Ambassador project of the Sharing Circle participant Peyton M. Cavnar from the University of Vermont, USA.

Shortly after my return from the Sharing Circle, I gave a short presentation to my climate science graduate class in late October, 2023. I briefly described to them the lifestyle of the Skolt Sami, their relationship with the Arctic, and how current events (such as anthropogenic climate change and the Russian-Ukraine War) continue to threaten cultural preservation. This opened up a dialogue among the graduate researchers on how to correctly collaborate with Indigenous communities. Sharing what I learned from our hosts at Sanila and Snowchange was especially important to students raised in Vermont, it being a state where the majority of Indigenous (Abenaki) culture has disappeared. Because of this, many graduate researchers at the University of Vermont do not know how to cultivate relationships with Indigenous communities despite their willingness to.  In January of 2024, I had the privilege of helping my advisor draft a section on Arctic Indigenous scientific collaboration in an NSF (United States National Science Foundation) proposal. I was asked to contribute because of my involvement in the Sharing Circle. Because of that experience, I proposed more integrative ways for that paleoclimate research to involve Greenlandic Arctic communities, such as collaborating with the Inuit Circumpolar Council. 

I recently moved back to Texas after completing my master’s. My goal for the fall is to present to students at my hometown high school about the Skolt Sami, climate change in the Arctic, and the overall significance of the Sharing Circle. I’ve already reconnected with environmental science and human geography teachers to plan when in the semester a guest lecture would best fit with the curriculum.