Running the Iditarod

At Van Schaick Grade School, students are experiencing the winter on the trail from inside their classrooms.

Each year, the students and teachers at the school follow the Iditarod, a more than 1,150-mile dog team race in Alaska. Last year, students focused on the character traits, such as teamwork and perseverance that the mushers and their dog teams had to have to go the distance.

This year, students are learning about the history of the race, which began as a means to get medicine from an Alaskan city to a more remote area by means of dog sleds in 1925.

Each classroom at Van Schaick chooses a musher to follow to track his or her progress and every morning Principal DeChiaro reads facts about the race over the announcements. In addition, students work on activities in their classrooms relating to the race.