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See related iditarod and dog mushing information:
See related pages:
http://www.adn.com/pf/mushing
http://www.iditarod.com/
http://www.adn.com/iditarod/
Add the name of an Indiana grade school teacher to the record-splitting list of rookies in this year's Iditarod. Unlike the others, Andrea Aufder-Heyde - or, more pronounceably, "Finney" - won't be needing racing experience for her run. She won't even need dogs. As the Iditarod's first "Teacher on the Trail," Finney has the relative luxury of being shuttled along by Bush planes from checkpoint to checkpoint. The 24-year teaching veteran's job is not to race, but to watch, learn and pass along her impressions of the race to thousands of students and teachers nationwide. Finney had been using the Iditarod to teach her class for about 15 years. In the past few, the Great Race had even provided inspiration for a whole new curriculum she used to tell students how mushers use "life skills" to reach their goals. But this time around, she wanted to do something even more for her second-graders: Why not get out on the trail and [ital]show[endital] them? Her love of dogs and the outdoors fueling her interest, she wondered: "There's been a teacher in space, why can't there be a teacher on the trail?" Finney came up with her idea at the right time, said Iditarod education director Lois Harter; she was already pursuing the idea with the Iditarod committee when Finney's request came along. After inviting Finney up for an interview in May, Harter and the committee gave the enthusiastic teacher their OK. A couple of weeks before the Iditarod, Finney came to town to begin preparing for her trip. That involved not only packing such essentials as a severe-cold sleeping bag and parka donated by Iditarod sponsor Cabella's, but also getting to learn the equipment she'll need on the trail to report on her trip to classrooms using the Web. The digital camera, laptop computer and the Web itself were all fairly new to her, Finney admitted, but she was undaunted. Whatever happens, she is ready to file from the trail, she said at the March 4 Mushers Banquet, days before her trip was to begin - even if her batteries die and her phone connections don't hold. "I am carrying paper and pencil because you never know about technology," she said. "We've got our fingers crossed," Harter added. The teacher's journey began Sunday night with a flight to Skwentna. Students (and others) can check in on her missives, which she began before leaving Anchorage, by visiting the Iditarod's web site (www.iditarod.com) and looking under the section titled "Teachers and Students." Finney's selection includes free Bush flights to various checkpoints (actually, she's using the same donated travel offered to Iditarod volunteers), but not travel costs to get to Anchorage. In the future, Harter hopes more of that cost might be covered, too. Much of Finney's travel money came from donations. The program already has been good for the Iditarod, Harter said. Though the new program attracted only about a dozen applications for the year 2000, it's not for lack of excitement. Already, the committee has received 250 application requests for 2001. "It has excited the educational community in the Lower 48," Harter said. The three finalists for 2000 came to town last week for interviews and to participate in events like the banquet and ceremonial start. The winner will be announced the first week of April. But already, Harter said, they'd experienced the wonder and excitement of the Iditarod. Teachers are at least as excited as students by what they see, Harter said. "They look and go 'wow' at everything," she said. "Their eyes are as big as moons." Suzi Owen, 38, a teacher for three and a half years from Westside Charter School in Rio Linda, Calif., made a splash locally by bringing her entire classroom of eighth-graders along with her. Joyce Swin, 52, a fifth-grade teacher from Maumee, Ohio, especially likes the lesson of the "Red Lantern Award," the prize given to the last musher to make it into Nome, she said. "I think that's a great lesson in life," she said. "You stay with it until you finish it." And fourth-grade teacher Diane Johnson, from Aberdeen, S.D., is no stranger to teaching by adventure. The 45-year-old teacher has previously traveled to Aruba to report back to her students on a solar eclipse, and says the "best way for me to help kids to learn is for me to learn." Like Finney, the teachers already were using information gleaned on their visit as classroom material. "I'm teaching them right now," said Johnson, who was at the banquet armed with a digital camera. Who's the perfect candidate? Finney says it's whomever can go out on the trail "greatly in awe." That is what she plans to do this year. Having already visited with some schools in Anchorage during this visit, Finney hopes she'll have some chances while out on the trail to meet with village schoolchildren and teachers, as well as to observe the work of mushers and Iditarod volunteers. "I think it'd be nice to visit with some of the schoolkids," she said. "I'll wait for them to reach out to me, though. I don't want to impose." Not one to let an educational opportunity pass, before her trip even began Finney already had posted accounts of her visit with Junior Iditarod mushers, arranged for a teleconference between mushers and students and wrote what it was like at the banquet. She knows her students - and others - are reading intently, she said. While she writes in Alaska, her students in Indiana are writing, too. Their assignment: to write "life skills books" cataloging the skills they see their teacher and the mushers using on the trail. They also must respond to periodic smaller assignments she posts on the web site. And, when they have questions for her, they e-mail; she answers. "My enthusiasm, of course, triggers theirs," she said. "That's what teaching is all about." Teachers may request an application kit for the Teacher on the Trail program by writing the Iditarod Trail Committee Inc., Educational Department, P.O. Box 870800, Wasilla AK 99687-0800.
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