Iditarod Quilt Teaches Gros Cap Students Life Values
By Paul Gingras

Second-grade students at Gros Cap School pose in front of the Iditarod traveling quilt Tuesday, December 18. The quilt celebrates the Alaskan Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which commemorates a group of mushers and sled-dog teams that transported serum to Nome, Alaska, in 1925, saving hundreds of lives from a diphtheria outbreak. Ten school classes a year borrow the quilt. Pictured (front, from left) are students Trevor Soblaskey, Eric Sweeney, Fred Lounsberry, Alexis Stearns, Emily Goudreau; (back) Lily Hart, Aaron Welch, Trevor LaJoice, Alicia Garen, and Joey Colegrove.

A traveling quilt about the Alaskan Iditarod dogsled race is helping second grade students at Gros Cap School learn about the concepts of helpfulness, perseverance, and sacrifice for others. Asymbol of the Alaskan Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the quilt was created by Alaskan educators to feature the race and its history. The Iditarod Education Department allows the quilt to travel the country, enabling one class a month to use it as a focal point for lessons on perseverance, teamwork, respect for animals, and to highlight the lengths to which people will go to save the lives of others.

Since it arrived at Gros Cap early this month, the colorful patchwork quilt, with images of huskies and the signatures of Iditarod mushers, has hung in the classroom of teacher Jaime Clark.

"It is a good way to get kids excited," Mrs. Clark said, and it enables educators to teach in a different way.

By harnessing the excitement of the race and its details, the students "do not realize they are learning as deeply as they are," she said, adding that concepts associated with the Iditarod are spilling over into other subject areas that highlight teamwork, perseverance, or benevolence. Mrs. Clark has already become accustomed to students comparing their other lessons to the Iditarod.

It is no surprise that the young students are impressed with the Iditarod. Each year, beginning in Anchorage and ending in Nome, racers endure the 1,150-mile Alaskan competition, in which mushers and teams of 12 to 16 sled dogs test their strength in strong winds and freezing temperatures, passing through jagged mountains, forests, the Alaskan tundra, and coastal terrain. The race can take from 10 to 17 days.

As the quilt hangs nearby, students at Gros Cap learn that dog mushers used the Iditarod Trail to deliver life-saving serum to Nome residents in 1925, when a diphtheria outbreak struck the community.

A race along the historic route was conceived in 1964, with the full 1,150 miles incorporated in 1973.

An animal lover himself, student Eric Sweeney learned of racers' efforts to protect their dogs' feet with special boots.

He added that he would like to take the Iditarod challenge himself, someday.

"It would take a really long time, but I would really want to do it," he said.

Trevor LaJoice finds it interesting that the Iditarod quilt has been to many classes before his, and that it will continue to be viewed by others. A square adorned with a husky in one upper corner of the quilt is his favorite piece, he said.

With the quilt as a catalyst, studying the dogsled race is a way to connect students to many required subjects, Mrs. Clark said. She has used the route of the Iditarod to teach mathematics and geography, noting that the race follows a northerly route on even-numbered years and a southerly route on odd-numbered years.

Students have been reading books about the Iditarod, making it the subject of language arts lessons, and in honor of the sacrifice that mushers made to help the residents of Nome in 1925, the class is making a quilt for a family in need.

A second quilt is also in progress and will be awarded to a student who excels in the class.

Students are learning to use digital cameras by taking photographs of the quilt for a scrapbook that travels with it.

Gros Cap received the Iditarod quilt by mail from a school in Topeka, Kansas. By the beginning of January, the students will have sent it to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Afterward, the quilt will be returned to Alaska, where it is to remain for this year's Iditarod.

In February, each student in the class will choose a musher to send letters to, before the racers begin to cross the harsh Alaskan landscape March 1, 2008, at 10 a.m.