Volcanoes of Iceland & Other Education.Jun 24, 2012
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| Things were crazy the last week in Reykjavik with our schedules being packed to the max (most days would usually go from 8am to 10pm). On Monday (June 18th) we had double language class as usual in the morning, and then changed things up a bit with an 'Icelandic Nature´ class... we all thought we were in for a slideshow of birds, maybe some plants, trees and such (the only land animal not introduced to Iceland is a type of Arctic Fox, which runs around abundantly... there are people specifically hired to hunt it so as to keep the population from getting out of control) but it was not what we expected, and instead turned out to be a class on the Geophysics of Iceland´s Volcano´s and other related topics. Because Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a tectonic plate boundary, it has a very high concentration of active volcanoes. The most fatal of all volcanic eruptions occurred in 1783, lasting until 1784, from the crater Lakagígar. Roughly a quarter of the Icelandic population died because of this eruption, and mainly due to indirect effects caused by the ash and poisonous gases. (Eyjafjallajökull - the one that occured in 2010 - was considered a very minor eruption, but was noted mostly because of its disturbance to European air travel for several weeks) Very interesting class. They monitor all of the volcano´s and there seems to be a couple that are getting ready to erupt at any moment (every 5-10 years). The one they are worried most about right now is Katla, which has its home in the Mýrdalsjökull glacier (the southernmost glacier in Iceland, about 600 km2) and are mainly worried about flooding from the glacier when the Volcano erupts. It has received its reputation as being the most dangerous Volcano in Iceland. After school we went to the Ministry of Education where we learned that Icelandic education is divided into four levels: playschool (leikskóli), compulsory (grunnskóli), upper secondary(framhaldsskóli), and higher (háskóli) - (similar to most other Nordic countries). Upper secondary (or continued school) is for students from 16-20 who wish to continue their education, and can be compared to a college preparatory high school (about 97% of young adults choose to continue). There are four different programs to choose from: grammar, industrial-vocational, comprehensive, and specialized vocational schools. Lastly there is University (or háskóli - high school) of which there are 8 in Iceland - the first of them being University of Iceland which opened 1911. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the meeting, we went back to the Guesthouse where we were able to have two hours of rest before another long evening of outings. Everyone was being split up into groups of 3 and picked up at 6:30pm by various board members of the Snorri Program and the INL. I was with Patrick and Christin, and we went for dinner with someone (I can´t remember his name right now) to his family house in Hafnarfjörður (a small town just outside Reykjavik). His family was very nice, put beer cans into our hands upon arrival, and sat us down in front of the tv to watch the Euro Cup while dinner was being finished. It was probably the best dinner that I have had in Iceland as of yet, there was lamb with mushroom gravy, potatoes, spinach, tomato, and boccini salad with pickled beets and some sort of Icelandic beans. Absolutely delicious. After dinner we chatted for sometime, before realizing it was almost 11pm and we were all basically falling asleep. Bless bless. |
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