Students used the Internet to track the progress of their musher and team three times a day.  We colored the trail in yellow as the first team reached that checkpoint.  Each day of the race, students also answered two "Iditarod Math" and "Iditarod Language" questions.  We also read the novels Black Star, Bright Dawn by Scott O'Dell and Call of the Wild by Jack London.  We were lucky to take a field trip to watch the AttaBoy 300 sled dog races held here in Central Oregon in January.  The students LOVED this project!

Our Trail Map

(Note - At the end of the race, this map was bought by one of our students for $900 classroom "Star Bucks"!  

Each of the students drew the name of a musher and cheered for him or her 

along the trail.  

Three times each day we checked the Iditarod web site and moved our sleds into their rank order.  

This is the final order our mushers came in.

We colored the trail in yellow as the mushers and their teams reached the checkpoint each day.

These are the top four finishers:  

   1st place was Martin Buser (Brandi)

   2nd place was Ramy Brooks (Kayla)

   3rd place was John Baker (Max)

   4th place was Jon Little (Jacob)

This is a close-up of Max's dogsled.  

He was cheering for John Baker's team.

Kayla cheered for Ramy Brooks 

and his dogs.

We think each and every musher and dog team which participated in the Iditarod 2002 is amazing!  Great job for a hanging in there for all those miles! We were glad to be able to follow your progress from Central Oregon by using the Internet.  

Mrs. Renz's & 4th Graders

P.S.  At our end of the year auction, students will be able to buy real Iditarod souvenirs (Mrs. Renz did some Internet shopping on the official Iditarod web site).  Our students were pretty excited to hear about that!  Students will be making sure to earn their "Star Bucks" by turning in their homework on time!