Happy Christmas

The Sámi people

The Sámi week is held in February, the week you are coming to visit us. This particular week there is a lot happening in Tromsø; there are various concerts, movies, exhibitions and of coarse the 6^th of February, which is the Sámi people’s national day.

The Sámis are an indigenous people. There are about 70 000 Sámis living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russisa (Sápmi) and they are among the largest ethnic groups in Europe. The Sámis have their own spoken and written language belonging to the Finno-Ugric group of lanuages.

Traditionally the Sámis lived by hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, and they lived in lavvus, traditional tents. Nowadays some Sámis still make a living of herding reindeers, whilst most Sámis have modern professions.

The culture of the Sámi people is still very much alive and is expressed through the traditional clothes, the traditional handicraft and the traditional way of singing, joik. The traditional clothes, gákti, are decorated differently according to if you are a woman or a man, your age and what region you are from. The gákti can be made from various materials: reindeer leather, cotton or wool. Cotton is used for summer wear and wool for the winter. The most common used colours are red, yellow, green, blue and black or grey.



The first picture shows a map of the Sámi area.
The sceond picture shows a Sámi boy in the traditional clothing, holding his reindeer.

Written by Sandra.

The sun is now below the horizon for 8 weeks, but still the sky in the south is full of light around noon. View from a classroom window.

Aurora Borealis – the Northern lights

The Northern lights are also called Aurora Borealis, after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. The Aurora Australis is the southern counterpart of the Aurora Borealis. The Auroras can be observed in the area around the magnetic poles.

Typically the aurora appears either as a diffuse glow or as "curtains" that approximately extend in the east-west direction. At some times, they form "quiet arcs"; at others ("active aurora"), they evolve and change constantly. Each curtain consists of many parallel rays, each lined up with the local direction of the magnetic field lines, suggesting that aurora is shaped by Earth's magnetic field.

When the solar wind is perturbed, it easily transfers energy and material into the magnetosphere. The electrons and ions in the magnetosphere that are thus energized move along the magnetic field lines to the polar regions of the atmosphere.


In folklore:


In Russian folklore aurora borealis was associated with the fire dragon ("Ognenniy Zmey"), who came to women and seduced them in the absence of their husbands.

The Finnish name for northern lights is revontulet, fox fires. According to legend, foxes made of fire lived in Lapland, and revontulet were the sparks they whisked up into the atmosphere with their tails.
In Estonian they are called virmalised, spirit beings of higher realms. In some legends they are given negative characters, in some positive ones.
In Latvian folklore northern lights, especially if red and observed in winter, are believed to be fighting souls of dead warriors, an omen foretelling disaster (especially war or famine).
The Sami people believed that one should be particularly careful and quiet when observed by the northern lights (called guovssahasat in Northern Sami). Mocking the northern lights or singing about them was believed to be particularly dangerous and could cause the lights to descend on the mocker and kill him/her.
The Inuit people of Alaska tell the traditional tale of their ancient ancestors who are seen in the rippling movements of the northern lights. They say that the "shadows" within the display are relatives and friends who have gone to the sky and march along or dance to remind the living people of their presence. When the dogs bark and howl at the sounds of the aurora borealis, it's said that the dogs recognize their one-time companions in the colorful display.

In Norwegian folklore the Northern Lights are the souls of dead people. If you wave to the northern lights with a handkerchiefor whistle to it, it will take you.

In Japan it is believed that the Northern Lights bring fertility.

Written by Maria :)

Our trip to Spain

On September 27, our trip to Spain began. We arrived in Cordoba on Sunday night after a long trip from Tromsø. Our hosts made us feel welcome from the first minute. We were separated in different villages, but that was okay since we had such great hosts. The next day, our exiting week could finally begin. We went to Montoro and had traditional breakfast at the school before we had sightseeing around town. Throughout the week we visited an olive mill, the beautiful mosque in Cordoba, a natural site and much more. We even got our photo in the local newspaper! In addition to this, we got to know the Spanish culture. All this was great, but the best thing about our trip was the social part. We made many new friendships, and we had a super week. Miss you guys, can’t wait till some of you get to Tromsø!

Greetings from the norwegian Spain- team

Dear Comenius-friends:

We would like to share with you our story from Germany. We would like to start by saying that we had a wonderful time. We are eternally grateful for the fantastic welcome you all gave us.

When we were in Lauterhofen, we experienced a lot of strange and funny things. Amongst all the interesting experiences, one that we found particularly great was the visit to a local farm.
Other things that we were allowed to be a part of were: We had some fantastic visits to local churches and experienced a lot of history. We also went to the city of Nurnberg, which was a lovely experience for us, because it was so much bigger than Tromsø. We felt that the trip to Nurnberg was very educational.

We would also like to thank the families that we stayed with during the week. We were so amazed by the amount of hospitality that was shown to us.

We also think, amongst all the things that we experienced, that it was very fun to see another culture, so different from our own.
We are looking forward to your visit to Tromsø. We assure you that the week you spend here will not be a waste of your time.

Love from June and Runar.

Norwegian language survival kit

Click here

Hola Espana!

We are home from a wonderful trip to Germany. See more photos in our photo gallery.

Norwegian Easter- a very different story

We have been reading the blogs about Easter celebrations in Greece, Italy,Spain and Germany and seen the wonderful pictures. There are so many similarities between you all. Our Easter is very different. We are Lutherans, but the church is not very important (unless you call yourself a "personal Christian").
We have the Easter lamb on Easter eve, we have bunnies and eggs etc, but to most people in Norway, Easter means skiing. Those who are the lucky owners of a cottage in the mountains, go there. The rest of us stay at home, but every day, the weather provided, we go out cross country skiing- with backpacks filled with hot cocoa, oranges, chocolates, logs to build a fire, a reindeer fur to sit on etc. Yes, the backpack is heavy!
Then we go up a mountain, looking for a nice place to rest. As good Lutherans we believe in hard work and eating all your dinner before you get the dessert, so we really have to sweat before we allow ourselves to stop. Having found the spot, and trying to avoid others going on the same errand,we sit in the snow with our fire and our food, trying to acqire a nice tan- until it gets too cold- unless the wind makes it impossible to sit down. Then we just have a standing buffet before we go home. And the next day it's the same procedure, and the next...
PS: if you don't believe me, check out the photo documentation in our photo gallery
;-)

New photos!

We've uploaded new images to our flickr gallery, mainly from the trip to Greece.
Be sure to check them out!

Great Greece!

Hi everyone. We had a lovely time in Greece, it was fun and educational. It was interesting to witness the culture of ancient Greece and get to know the history behind it. It was also very fun to hear all the old folk tales form ancient Greece, about King Minos, the centaurs and the ship of Arcos. We also saw a lot of extraordinary things that we never can see in Norway, like Meteora, which was really stunning. But the best part was to meet and to be with all the students form Italy, German, Spain and of course Greece. And the social activities we had together were really great!

Greetings from Eirik and Gaute.

*New photos from our trip in the gallery.

Germany, here we come

Happy Easter to our partners

We want to say a big thank you to Dimitri and Efi and all the students in Volos. The stay was superb, and coming home to -10 degrees Celsius after a week of constantly +18 really shows the diversity of our continent. We have great memories (and lots of photos), and look forward to the next meeting in Lauterhofen.

about us

My classmates and I:

Hi folks. My name is Eirik Fjelde and I’m a second year student at Kongsbakken upper secondary. My classmates and I are studying at the music, dance and drama branch which is divided in two classes. We are following the music direction while another class is following dance and drama, but we also have other subjects like maths, language, history, social studies and geography.

Our Town:

We live in Tromsø, Paradise of north as it is called. About 62 000 people live here. We have many pubs here and the nightlife here is very good. We also have a lot of football fields and other outdoor and indoor sports activities. There are also a lot of local musical activities, and we have a lot of local bands who often play live.

report

Our work with the Comenius project has been an interesting experience for most of us.
We have decided what our topic will be, but the play isn’t finished yet. We have a group of students that are working on it. Besides the play we’ve been working in different groups, such as “photo” and “internet”.

We use some of our history and Norwegian lessons for working with Comenius. In addition to the play, some students are working on a power point presentation on the differences and similarities between Sami and Norse myths and fairytales.

Dagny (f), Eirik (m), Torunn (f) and Gaute (m), the four students that are going to Greece in February, are really looking forward to the trip. In addition to the students and the teachers Kari and Janne, the school’s headmaster is going too.

Written by Eline and Dagny

Photo gallery

We've created a gallery on flickr. Here you'll find pictures of our class, our work (with the Comenius project), Tromsø, anything we feel like taking pictures of, really. You can find it here.

Enjoy!

Norwegian Mythological Characters

Norwegian Mythological Characters

(A painting by Marit Bockelie, an artist from Tromsø)

Draugen (The sea troll) is an undead from Norse mythology that lives in the sea. He is one of the most feared mythological creatures by the fishers, because he can take control over the sea. The draug was believed to slay their victims through various methods, including crushing them with their enlarged forms, devouring their flesh, and drinking their blood.

The creature is said to either swim alongside boats or sail around them in a partially submerged vessel, always on their own. In some accounts, witnesses portray them as shapeshifters who take on the appearance of seaweed or moss-covered stones on the shoreline.

We have a long coast line in Norway, and fishing has been a traditional trade. The Draug was used to explain capsizes that happened on the sea.

(A painting by the famous Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen)

Written by Maria

Comenius goes Facebook

We have created a group for us all Comenius students. Come and join so that we can get to know each other better. We will post pictures and stuff here :D

Facebook


posted by: The IT-group of Comenius, Norway

The teachers: Kari M. Kristensen and Janne Kristiansen,
standing in front of our school building.

The lucky four who are going to Volos, Greece in February 08

Tromsø

Selbuvott

I see many comments about the weather and the low temperatures in Northern Norway.

Due to the Gulf Stream the weather is warmer than expected this far north. Especially in the coastal areas the weather is quite mild. So don't worry. We aren't suffering here! :)

In the picture you see Charlotte and Ragnhild wearing traditional Norwegian gloves. They are knitted, and in Norwegian they are called "Selbuvotta".

Sandra West.

The sun is still below the horizon, and this photo from early December shows how light is is around noon.