Norway - explorers

Norway has a long history of getting involved with other countries in political matters. Currently Norway is one of the loudest voices in matter of peace. The museums we went to showed Norway's history supports that. The most prominent is the Nobel Peace Museum. Our tout guide was very proud of Norway's leadership in that award. The Raftohuset in Bergen is an example of how even colleges there are getting involved. The Fram and Kon-Tiki are examples of Norwegians in history that have done research in areas that can better help our understanding of nature and how to better keep our industires green. And My favorite example is the hobby of hiking. The view from the mountian hike in Bergen as inspiring as it is beautiful.- Patrick Austinson

Iceland - Signs of peace

Iceland had a few signs of involvement in peace. The earliest sign we were shown on our tour of the golden circle. Throstur Eysteinsson, our guide, showed us the location of the peace negotiations by the early settlers. He also pointed out the first location of the Icelandic Parliament. Iceland also showed interest in peace when it chose to become christian. Mr. Eysteinsson explained this when he told us about the meeting where their leader spent a few days in his tent with some women and came out with the decision to have Iceland not fight for it's right to be pagan, but submit to becoming Christians. - Patrick Austinson

Denmark: House of Organic inspiration

While we were in Denmark we visited the House of Organic Inspiration, which was full of ecological and green technology. Right away our guide had an amazing out-going personality which brought a new light and interest into the subject of "green". She was very passionate about the environment and everything the house stood for. As began our tour inside the house, we were greated with the first stop of the natural toilet room. The toilet consisted of a place for liquids... and then a bag for solid waste. It was difforent at first to see but made sence in the end on how they would take and compost the waste later on. just another interesting take on how one can conserve more. This house also consisted of a multitude of ways of heating and cooling the area such as hydro as well as solar panal heating and electricity use. The walls were shown and made naturally with layers in order to trap in more heat as well as to cool in the summer. It was interesting because this house even had a fountain going from the top level and trickled down a spiral of rocks until it was to ground level. This was because of the fact that although it was rain water, the energy that it would produce flowing down the rocks, would help provide it with enouph energy to help replenish the soils around the house making the plants more nutriant. Around the roof of the house they had planted many difforent plants in order to help trap the air and toxins that had been let out by the random glues and paints that the kids might have used in their crafts earlier that day. The soils help trap and reuse these toxins so they do not go back into the atmosphere as strong. There were many intersting aspects to this house. I am not sure if I personally could live in something like this but there were a lot of good ideas and inspererational ideas that it gave off that many people could use in their every day house that are both moder and eco friendly.




Erika Strom

comparissons between the hostels and hotels

This is a view from the Dan Hostel in Denmark.

During our travels throughout Scandinavia we had a chance to experience a veriety of places. As our trip had the thinking of "Green", our hostels and hotels were supposed to be mostly ecoaware with the swan ecological label. We fist stayed in the Reykjavik city Hostel which in an earlier post was stated to have the ecolabel which helped us see the more concious efforts of Iceland. While traveling to Bergen, we stayed in the Thon hotel which also had the eco labels. This hotel, I felt, did not show as many signs as being actually "green" because of the fact that it was a bit more "luxorious" compared to our first hostel experience. In Oslo, we stayed at the Oslo hostel outside of town which really didnt help with the "eco friendly" tour by us because of the fact we did have to ride public transportation back and forth all the time to hostel instead of walking if we were right downtown. The efforts in this hostel were not made as clear for it being an ecofriendly hostel as well because of the fact of not seeing the actual eco labels on indivual things such as soaps or toiletpaper. In Norway though there were many concious efforts that could be seen to keep the environment and more eco awareness is still prevelent. While we were in Sweden we stayed at the Scandic hotel, which had great recycling efforts as well as energy efficiant lighting. One example of this was that when entering the room, you would have to put your key in a slot in order for the lights to go on, and then when you left you would take it out of the slot. This way, no lights get left on by accident waisting more unessisary electricity.

Fridtjof Nansen and the Arctic exploration Museums

While in Oslo we had the opportunity to visit some of the many exploration museums as well as the Nobel Peace prize museum. One of the people that stuck out to me while at these two places was Fridtjof Nansen, one of the most known explorers, scientists, and diplomat in Norway's history. Nansen won the Nobel Peace prize in 1922 for helping organize during WW1 a place and acceptance for refuge Russians at the time. He also created the Nansen passport which helped these refugees and it was recogognized by at least 52 countries. Nansen's involvment was not only in this peace role but also in the polar explorations to the arcitic. There is a museum in Oslo exhibiting the actual boat "The Fram" that was taken by Nansen and his crew across the polar seas. I liked this museum the best I think because I have personally been interested in polar expeditions both involving scandinavia as well as others such as the Franklin failed expidition. These explorations throughout the North and South have been a hard accomplishment for the ones who have come out successful. During these expiditions, many experaments and scientific research was done in order to better the understanding of the future of wildlife, diseases, as well as the way the body reacts. Nansen was known for his participation and findings as one of the first to come up with the neuron theory.

A hydrogen powered iceland

Iceland is looking to become the only country in the world that generates 100% of all its electricity via completely renewable energy weather is be by hydro power, wind power, solar power and there are a few more as well including geothermal energy represented by the Blue Lagoon that we visited. At the moment they supply 89% of all the energy needed and are looking into becoming a hydrogen economy. Iceland is the first country in the world to create an economy generated through industries fueled by renewable energy, and there is still a large amount of untapped hydroelectric energy in Iceland. In 2002 it was estimated that Iceland only generated 17% of the total harness able hydroelectric energy in the country. -Nick Kruger

The Stockholm City Hall

The Stockholm city hall is the place where the Nobel Prize banquet is held every year and is also one of Stockholm’s major attractions. Ragnar Ostberg was the architect who created the Rodhuset in Stockholm, but in order to get the job he had to win a contest for the design of the city hall. One of his competitors Carl Westman was asked instead to create the Stockholm courthouse. While the city hall was designed by Ostberg, he also used some of the elements of Westman’s design for the huset which included the tower. Ostberg was never really satisfied with what he was doing so he constantly was changing his plans and ideas along the way. For example, the room in which the Nobel prize banquet is held is called the blue hall, but Ostberg abandoned the idea of the blue glazed tiles for that room along with the idea of painting the brick portion blue.
-Nick Kruger june 8th, 2009