Event Kit for WorldWide IDEA's Idita-Read 2012
Event Schedule
Mar 03 — Apr 21, 2012
This kit page includes freely offered resources for use by anyone who wants to do an Idita-Read event, whether or not they pay to participate in the online event featured here at Read A Route. Trail Tools include helpful printables to distibute to students ("mushers"); Supplemental Learning Links showcase other online, (mostly) non-commercial resources to support Iditarod-related themes; and, Activity Ideas submitted by Team Managers who participated in previous years.
Supplemental Learning Links
These third-party online resources provide learning activities and information about the Iditarod, along with other topics (e.g., science, social studies, art) related to Alaska, the Arctic, and lesson ideas.
Multidisciplinary Related to the Iditarod Trail
- The Serum Run Game — Our absolutely favorite resource! This interactive game sends mushers on a mission that integrates the Iditarod Trail concept with geography, history, culture, and science. Mushers even get to pick their lead dog! Offers three levels of difficulty and three game lengths. A certain level of reading skill is required, however, as there is no speaking on the audio track.
- Bureau of Land Management's Iditarod National Historic Trail — includes trail chronology, stories, and more.
- Iditarod Historic Trail Visitor Guide — Part 1 (PDF)
- Iditarod Historic Trail Visitor Guide — Part 2 (PDF)
Reading & Writing
- Storyline Online — An excellent online streaming video program featuring famous actors reading chlidren's books aloud. Includes Closed Captioning.
- Into the Book — A highly interactive reading comprehension resource for Grades K-4 that focuses on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing.
- Elements of a Story — An interactive resource for Grades 2-5 that explains the basic parts of a story.
- My StoryMaker — An interactive storymaking site with choice of characters, settings, props, actions, interactions, and feelings. You can even print when you're done!
- Read-Write-Think: Student Materials — Lots of lessons as well as printables and interactives for students, including Literary Elements Map, Story Map, Comparison and Contrast Guide and more.
- The Writing Site — Guidance for teachers on how to assess student writing.
- Stairway to Reading — Guidance for teachers and ready-to-use reading lessons and assessments.
- Creating a Classroom Newspaper — Guidance for teachers; Activity idea can be incorporated with Iditarod-relevant topics. See Newspaper Activity idea in right-hand sidebar below.
Iditarod Race & Mushing
- Official Site of The Iditarod
- Iditarod's section For Teachers
- Learn About the Iditarod
- Iditarod Trail Race History
- Iditarod Trail Race Media Guide — Includes descriptions of the checkpoints, trail legs & musher profiles
- Mushing Terminology
- Official Iditarod Trail Map
- Cabela's 11x17 Iditarod Trail Map (PDF)
- Checkpoint Info (checkpoint descriptions) from Cabela's (doc)
- Pack a Dog Sled — a WebRangers interactive from the National Park Service
- Cool Jobs Videos — Iditarod Musher
- Student-made Iditarod PowerPoint Presentations
- PBS: Sled Dogs — An Alaskan Epic — A look at the sled dog, the history of the Iditarod, and the real life story of Balto and the race to save lives threatened by a diptheria outbreak in Nome, Alaska.
- The Iditarod: An Interactive Unit Study Outline — Many good activity ideas and additional links to information.
- EducationWorld: Iditarod Lesson Planning — Various activities that can be customized for all grade levels.
- Race to the Sky — Montana's annual sled dog race. They offer some Educational Opportunities.
Geography, Mapping & Climate
- Idita-Read.org's full-size trail map — a larger, printable Google Map that includes the Iditarod Trail Race checkpoints.
- Geography Drop — Your mission is to correctly identify cities, rivers, and other locations in Alaska. Your airplane is ready to take you there!
- Alaska History & Cultural Studies: The Geography of Alaska
- Alaska Studies —
- Arctic Climate & Meteorology Primer
- Alaska Climate Summaries — Compare and contrast climate trends.
- Arctic Map & Current Weather Reports
- EdHeads: Weather Activities — Interactive module for understanding weather reports and prediction, temperature conversion, and a weather glossary; includes teacher guidance.
- Franklin's Forecast — Instructions on how to make your own weather station and other weather-related explanations.
- Weather World 2010 Project — Integrates current and archived weather data (images & text) with instructional resources (modules & curriculum), including a collection of multimedia instructional modules covering meteorology and remote sensing.
- GeoKids: Geography for Kids — Read about the Earth in the Geography Online section and play some mapping games in the Geogaphy Games section. The Latitude and Longitude Map Match Game is especially good.
- National Geographic: Xpeditions — Lesson plans and activities for exploring geography through mapping skills.
- PBS/NOVA: The Search for Longitude — Play the two interactivities — Find Your Longitude, to understand why having a precise timepiece (known as a chronometer) helps you determine your longitude, and compare that with how GPS: The New Navigation works.
Science & Technology
- Cool Critters — Features some basic facts about Alaskan animals.
- Artifact Match — An interactive game featuring a variety of artifacts highlighting Alaska Native art and technologies. Players must match the artifact with its description.
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's National Digital Library — A great source for images and other media in the public domain to use for projects.
- All About Glaciers
- Arctic — A Friend Acting Strangely — This Smithsonian Museum online exhibit explores how the Arctic's climate is changing and how that affects the people and animals who live there.
- Auroras! Mysterious Lights in the Sky — Excellent animated overview of aurora science, created for Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum; especially good for younger students.
- Auroras: Paintings in the Sky — Get an overview of the science behind the Aurora borealis.
- Aurora Forecast — Explore this prediction site at the University of Alaska to get an idea of how scientists measure the conditions that can produce these natural beauties.
- Arctic Wildlife Portfolio — Grouped by Birds, Mammals, and Sea Mammals.
- Wild-eyed Alaska — Includes video clips of animals.
- Funtastic Facts about Alaska's Wildlife
- Alaska: A Bird's Eye View — Join Tutangiaq, the Canada goose, and explore Alaska from a unique perspective. Find out information on changing climate patterns, history in Alaska and much more. This site uses satellite imagery to illustrate volcanic eruptions and includes a compilation of online resources.
- PBS/NOVA: Deadly Ascent — Features a team of doctors and climbers on Denali, testing the body's response to extreme cold.
- Minerals Management Service: Kids' Corner — Short Subjects — Includes information about crude oil, oil rigs, Alaska's volcanoes, etc.
- PBS: The Alaska Pipeline
- PBS: Building the Alaska Highway
- Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
Social Studies
- Teachers' Domain: Alaska Ways of Knowing — This lesson begins with two videos that present how local knowledge is acquired, passed on, and applied. Following a brief class discussion, students watch more videos that will help them prepare for their primary assignment: completing a science fair project that demonstrates the application of traditional knowledge to a scientific topic.
- Alaska Native Knowledge Network: Lessons & Units — A database of lessons and units searchable by content and cultural standards, cultural region and grade level.
- Dena'ina Qenaga Digital Archive — Provides information about the Dena'ina (Athabascan) language
- Col. Goodwin's report (PDF) to the Alaska Road Commission after his surveying exploration to determine trail routes — A digital copy of this primary source.
- Artifact Match — An interactive game featuring a variety of artifacts highlighting Alaska Native art and technologies. Players must match the artifact with its description.
- Alaska History & Cultural Studies — Great information about the state's Geography, its different cultures, its history as a Russia Colony and America's Territory, along with its Government and Modern Alaska life. Includes a timeline comparing events in Alaska with national and international events.
- Alaska's Digital Archives — Provides great primary source materials for exploring Alaskan history and cultures.
- The Story of Alaska's Flag
- Subsistence in Alaska Timeline — A brief timeline explaining key milestones in Alaska's subsistence cultures and policies.
- Crossroads of Continents — Explore this museum exhibit to learn more about Siberian-Alaskan peoples & history.
- Looking Both Ways — Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People of Southern Alaska
- Alaska's Gold
Fine Arts
- Yup'ik Masks — Explore the art, history, and cultural importance of these ceremonial masks.
Miscellaneous
- Wumpa's World — A very interactive Web-based game designed for children ages 3 to 5. Create your own fish and save a baby whale. Paddle your kayak through the ice floes and catch fish through a hole in the ice. Play matching games with a seal. Paint with a polar bear. These are just a few of the activities offered on Wumpa's World. If the animation pauses, click around to move forward again. Audio speakers required.
