News and Information

How Does It Start?

Martha Dobson, Iditarod Educational Consultant How does it start? This dream of running sled dogs, running teams in long distance races. Is it in your family, like the Mackeys, or in your culture, like John Baker, Paul Johnson? Did you move north and fall in love with the land, the dogs, their abilities? Or, did …

Photo Collection 2012

These photos are from the 40th running of the Iditarod, Iditarod 2012.

Art Project: Iditarod Traveling Quilt – The Virtual Quilt

Join us for a Virtual Adventure!  Design a Quilt Square.  Submit your quilt square via Internet and be a part of a quilt that wraps planet earth — Idita Style!  Design and create your own quilt square(s).  Take a digital image of the quilt square.  Send it to us and we’ll add it to the …

Go Idita-Walking and Get Healthy!

What is an Idita-Walk? An Idita Walk is a fun  way to improve your health and keep physically fit.  It involves creating a walking program and using the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race® as the theme or inspiration for the exercise program.  An Idita Walk is a project that children and adults can participate in …

Official Artist for the Iditarod – Jon Van Zyle

Jon Van Zyle turns his artistic talent to support the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race every year when he creates the official race poster. Beautifully done, each poster expresses an important race theme or historical viewpoint. The 2010 poster juxtaposes current racing against the backdrop of the history of running dogs in Alaska, showing a …

Iditarod Around the World: Taiwan

Hi Diane! Here are two files that shows my one of my students’ letters.  She wants to thank you and your website for helping her learn. English is her second language and she has never seen or heard of a the Iditarod prior to this or even seen snow!  So this was a good experience …

Iditarod Beginnings, or How Teachers Start Using Iditarod as a Teaching Tool

By Martha Dobson, Iditarod Educational Consultant Teachers rejuvenate themselves and their classroom teaching by trying different ideas, activities, and different techniques to catch their students’ interest and boost learning. The Iditarod is one of those different topics to use as a teaching tool to facilitate student learning. How do teachers discover the Iditarod, and how …

Building Relationships: Matters of the Heart

By Cathy Walters Parents and teachers everywhere desire that their children be responsible citizens. As teachers and parents, we hope and pray that our children make good choices, knowing the difference between right and wrong. Children constantly hear from authority figures that they are in charge of their behavior and all of the decisions they …

Yupik Art Project

Yupik Art Project for Classrooms! Educational Journalist, Joy Davis, of Indiana engaged her students in an art project involving Yupik heritage.  Her basic skills class sponsors Mike Williams, Jr. who is a Yupik Eskimo.  To learn more about the culture the class did some reading and research.  Please refer to the follow site for more …

Students Write Poems

Students from a Lemoyne Middle School’s sixth grade reading class completed their Iditarod unit by reading and writing about stories like: Balto, by Standiford, TOGO, by Blake, Where’s the Boss? by Harter for background knowledge of the Iditarod and sled dog experiences. We then read Gary Paulsen’s Woodsong. One of the writing pieces they completed …