Starting Classes

After a couple days of orientation and settling into our new school we started our first day of classes this Wednesday. In the morning we met our Finnish language and culture teacher Helena Sarvikas. She began by teaching us many Finnish words that are so similar to English we already know their meanings. Words like auto, kamera, musiikki, energia, and idiootti don’t require much translating.  She gave us a list of “Survival Words” so we could say proper greetings, ask for directions, peoples names, food, drink, restroom and more.  Helena is a helpful teacher and encourages us to ask questions and practice saying words aloud to ourselves.

Next we had Finnish Silviculture with Juha Tiainen. We had met him a couple times before in the cafeteria; Juha is a lively man who likes to joke around but is clearly passionate about Finnish Forestry. During our first class he gave us a brief overview of what would be expected of us, the turnover rate between regeneration and timber harvesting in Finland, and the importance of the timber industry in terms of tapping into a valuable renewable resource that can replace energy inefficient materials while helping fix the growing global issue of climate change.  Many people, especially in America, have the misconception that timber production contributes to deforestation. That is an outdated attitude as it has become a central focus that forest management practices foster sustainable, healthy stands that ensure the availability of this resource for future generations. Juha showed us a short video about how regenerating forests can help replace our dependence on fossil fuels with bioenergy and reverse the greenhouse effect by using more carbon sequestering, renewable, biodegradable wood products. I hope this important approach becomes more popular in America, especially to our government, which has a knack for suppressing movements that threaten the vitality of oil companies.  This short introduction has gotten me very excited to learn more in here in Finland about their forest management.

Lastly we had a short overview of Finnish Agriculture with Anna Tall and Teija Ronka, a specialist in livestock husbandry.  Teija presented us with some general information about farming in Finland. Though the number of farms has decreased in the last 10 years, the average size of these farms are growing and it is still a fundamental part of the country’s livelihood.  Cereal grain production is the most common type of farm followed by dairy and beef production. Pig and horse husbandry is also quite important. During our time in Finland we will be working on the school farm getting basics of livestock care as well as cultivation of agriculture fields.  We will also be taking trips to various farms in Finland to see how they function in practice. Again, “Learn by doing” is valued at our university and will play a large part in our learning experience.

Our clearly experienced instructors are knowledgeable, approachable and enthusiastic about teaching which makes them very effective educators. Overall, we have a lot to look forward to at Seinajoki and we will be learning more and more every day, as we have been doing since our arrival.