Science

Forces of Flight Applied to My Sled

Lift, weight, thrust and drag are the four physical forces that make flight possible. Which of these physical forces can be applied to a dog sled as it glides along the trail? Teacher on the Trail™, Linda Fenton, posed that exact question to her third grade students while learning about and experimenting with the 4 …

Hello Texas!

The 2013 Winter Conference for Educators is now officially underway.  Teachers and presenters are gathered here from Alaska and the Lower 48 states.  New for the conference this year is presenter Barbara Cargill who is the chair of the State Board of Education in Texas.  Barbara is committed to Science curriculum in her state, and …

4 Forces of Flight

I’m looking forward to so many things with my upcoming adventure:  Talking with mushers, presenting to schools in Alaska, seeing the dogs and on and on.  Another top thing on my list is flying with the Iditarod Air Force.  In a previous blog, I shared a simple lesson on surface area.  Attached here are a …

Senses of Snow

Students from Wisconsin and the northern states that have snow, know snow.  But until we talked about the physical properties of snow, they took it for granted as simply snow.  Snow can be very different.  The snow I chose for our investigation in a recent Science lesson on matter was light, fluffy snow.  The snow …

Flying With The Iditarod Air Force

When some people think of me being the Teacher on the Trail, they think of me on a dog sled racing along.  Now I have an adventurous spirit – but not that adventurous.  I will actually be flying to different checkpoints along the trail with the Iditarod Air Force, a group of pilot volunteers who …

Aurora Borealis

I love it when on that rare occasion I start a project with my class, finish it, and actually get a bulletin board up on the same day.  That happened Friday with my lesson on the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.  Explaining the Aurora can be as simple or as complicated as you want to …

What’s Up With the Weather?

I was looking for results for the Top Of The World 350 – Lance Mackey won by the way – and came across an article from the Alaska Dispatch about the Knik 200 being cancelled due to weather.  http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/knik-200-becomes-latest-sled-dog-race-bite-dust Our friend, Angie Taggart, has been training with a sled instead of a 4-wheeler so I …

Dog Traits

I have this mantra about lesson plans – steal . . . ahem . . . borrow and tweak.  This lesson is an example of my mantra.  At the Winter Conference for Educators last year, Sid Lucas, a High School teacher from Kiel, Wisconsin, presented a lesson about genetics.  Seeing the value of the lesson …

Get Outside! Idita- Nature Project

IditaNature! Get Outside! View the IditaNature Project Carmen Field, with the Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and Kids in Nature launched an exciting new initiative for connecting children with nature during the 2010 Iditarod Sled Dog Race.  In the past several years, more than 300 Alaskan kids (preschoolers and elementary students) from schools in …

Iditarod Ready! Storm Ready!

Iditarod Ready! StormReady® — StormReady® teaches the communication and safety skills needed to save lives and property – before and during the onslaught of severe weather – while improving science skills and expanding knowledge about climates of the world. Be an Iditarod StormReady® classroom! A World Of Weather — This gameshow-style game makes it fun …