by Sandra Jourdan, Tchefuncte Middle School

Teacher Introduction

Introduction:

The Iditarod Race: The Last Great Race is a curriculum web that introduces students to the famous Iditarod Race in Alaska.   Partners will complete this webquest to introduce a topic area without mastery requirements and to motivate students to learn about an unknown subject area. 

This webquest is meant to follow reading the novel Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner.  Stone Fox is about a dog sled race held in Wyoming.  The activities will expand on this topic by teaching students about the Iditarod Race.

This curriculum web includes three graded activities for students to complete.  I suggest allowing at least two weeks for this webquest taking into consideration how much computer time you have in class. 

Aim:

The Iditarod Race Curriculum WebQuest is designed to expand knowledge about dog sled races by sending students on fact-finding missions to various websites about the Iditarod Race.  This webquest also promotes cooperative learning between partners where they have to prepare a presentation and create a poster.

Rationale:

     This is an inquiry and exploratory curriculum web designed to introduce a topic area without mastery requirements and to motivate students to learn about an unknown area.

     I believe that relating school work to current events is a great way to motivate students.  The famous Iditarod Race is an exciting way to introduce students to a real life dog sled race that will help them make a connection with the novel that was previously read.  Students will get to know a musher by looking at photographs and reading biographies of this year’s entrants.  Students will then have a true interest in following the race and learning the outcome.

     By studying various web-based resources containing information about the Iditarod Race, students will practice navigating online web sites.  They will navigate through various sites by completing an online scavenger hunt created by the teacher.  After completing this scavenger hunt, they will then have the information needed to write their article for a newspaper.  Students will then create a presentation acting as a sports reporter using the information.  This will integrate creativity with understanding of the topic. 

 Prerequisites:

Before using the Iditarod CurriculumWeb, students should be able to:

Subject-Matter:

This curriculum is centered on subject matter relevant to Language Arts subjects including:

It also includes skills that relate to team-work, presentation skills, use of Web to support research, and art.

Goals and Objectives:

This curriculum web was developed for fourth grade students to complete in two weeks time.  It was created to introduce a topic to motivate students to learn about an unknown subject area.  The teacher wants to connect information from novel, Stone Fox, which was previously read in class, to a real life situation.  It was also designed to reinforce skills helping students to use the Web to conduct research.

 Learning Objectives:

·        The learner will be able to define various facts about the Iditarod Race in Alaska. 

·        The learner will be able to use web sites to describe facts about the Iditarod Race by completing an online scavenger hunt.

·        The learner will interpret information about the Iditarod Race found after completing online scavenger hunt by writing a newspaper article describing the race.

·        The learner will summarize information in the written article by giving a presentation that describes the Iditarod Race.

·        The learner will create a mock interview pretending to be a sports reporter for a local newspaper giving information about the Iditarod Race.

·        The learner will exhibit effective collaboration skills while working with a partner to complete tasks.   

·        The learner will design a poster that describes which dog sled team they want to win by reading biographies and viewing photographs of actual teams on the official Iditarod Website.