Title: Dream A Dream: Reach A Goal -- Author(s): Carol M. Frego, Sheila Harrington, and Cyndy Hennessy -- Grade Level: 5th -- Subject Matter: Math/ Eng/Language Arts/Music/Technology -- Synopsis: Developing dreams and achieving goals that we set for ourselves.

This learning unit has everything to do with the NY State Learning Standards and methods of developing the curriculum, incorporating technology as the vehicle to help students reach the broad goals and yet specific goals of education.

This unit was developed for Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade Students, with the theme of developing dreams and achieving goals that we set for ourselves. The challenge for the students is one of statistician, historian, and author combined into one unique individual.

The unit can easily be adapted to any grade level, but does require a great deal of prior research on the part of the teacher. The start for the Iditarod Race is the first Saturday in March, therefore, the unit background knowledge needs to be started at least four weeks earlier to be able to be ready for the online statistical and writing components of the unit

What are the challenges presented by geography and climate to people living in Alaska?

What are the factors influencing the success and/or failure of mushers during the Iditarod Race?

What are some of the challenges you or other people face today and how will you prepare to meet these challenges?

(See Learning Experience: Electronic Spreadsheets and Iditarod 2000 by Sheila Harrington for this section of the unit.)

Does the Internet allow us access to daily Race Updates on mileage and mushers’ rankings?

How do business and schools use spreadsheets with graphics to explain their budgets?

(See Learning Experience: Iditarod Music Trail by Cyndy Hennessy for this section of the unit.)

CONNECTIONS TO NYS LEARNING STANDARDS
List Standard # and Key Idea #: Write out related Performance Indicator(s) or Benchmark(s)

Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen, and speak to acquire and transmit information and understanding. Students will collect data, facts, and ideas about Alaska and the Iditarod Race to discover relationships and concepts. They will use knowledge from oral, written, and electronic sources. They will interpret and apply this knowledge by clearly presenting information orally and in written texts.

Standard 2: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression. Students will read a biography and realistic fiction and be able to identify the distinguishing characteristics of each genre. They will read expository texts, newspapers, computer printouts, and will teleconference with the author of the biography. From these experiences, students will relate how other people have faced and prepared for challenges, and how they may be better prepared to dace their own challenges. They may also begin to understand the impact of environment, history, and culture upon a particular event and people, and animals of a particular region.

Standard 2: Students will use information technology to retrieve, process and communicate information and as a tool to enhance learning. Using technology, students will retrieve current statistics about the weather, dogs, and mushers as they compete in the Iditarod Race. Students and teachers will communicate by email with other students and teachers about the race, the cultural habits of the people, and unique features of Alaska. The information discussed in the email will extend from data retrieved from two statistical websites, mainly www.iditarod.com and www.dogsled.com.

Standard 5: Students will use a computer to connect to and access needed information from various Internet sites. Students will use spreadsheets and database software to collect, process, display, and analyze information.

Students will explore and produce graphic representation of data using computers, explaining what is the mean for a group of data and what data gathered would be more appropriately communicated with mode or median. Using data collected about the mushers, dogs, weather, students will develop spreadsheets and graphs to represent data.

Using the Iditarod Trail, the students will listen to and select music to accompany that particular section of the trail. Students will justify their selections to the class.

The teachers will launch the unit with a K-W-L Chart, asking students what they know about the Iditarod Race. After sharing information from individual KWL charts and recording on a class KWL, students will view the video, Season of the Sled Dog and will read aloud the book, Mush Across Alaska in the World’s Longest Sled Dog Race. These selections will permit an introduction to the students of an overall view of the Iditarod Race.

The video, Season of the Sled Dog Race was produced by a former musher and first woman to finish the Iditarod Race. The video portrays "bush style" living, typical of the Alaskan people along the Iditarod trail, and her day-to-day life experiences in her dog yard. In the video, Mary Shields discusses traits of sled dogs, their preparation and placement in sled dog teams, and her own preparation and training for the Iditarod Race. The book, Mush! Across Alaska in the World’s Longest Sled Dog Race, presents historical information about the Iditarod Race and a very general but yet comprehensive description of the identifying characteristics of the race.

LEARNING EXPERIENCES
In chronological order including acquisition experiences and extending/refining
experiences for all stated declarative and procedural knowledge.

Learning Experience #1 Presented with the question, "What is the Iditarod?" and instructions for completing a KWL Chart, students will respond individually, what they know about the Iditarod Race. This information will then be elicited and shared with the whole group for the development of a classroom KWL Chart. Next, students will determine the questions that they want to gain answers to for an understanding of the Iditarod Race. These questions will then be solicited from individuals and will be added to the KWL Chart and their individual journals.

Learning Experience #2 Students will read Mush! Across Alaska in the World’s Longest Sled Dog Race, an informational picture book categorized into three parts; the history of the race, the defining characteristics of the race, and the challenges and the successes earned through completion of the race by its participants. This information book will be accentuated with a DRTA.

Learning Experience #3 Students will be shown how to access the Internet service of the school and the World Wide Web. They will then be provided with the addresses of sites for the purpose of locating information about Alaska, its people and animals, the Iditarod Race, its rules, policies, participants, events, maps of the trail with checkpoints, and important geographical features. Important information is to be downloaded and compiles within a three-ring binder. Later the students will be asked to categorize this information, decide what information they want to keep, after which, they will develop a table of contents for organization within a three-ring binder.

Learning Experience #4 Students will read about one group of Alaskan people in Children of the Midnight Sun and A Child’s Alaska. While working within collaborative pairs, students will discuss the information and will determine one unique aspect of that group’s culture to be elaborated upon in an oral and written report. One artistic element unique to the culture will also be presented with the method of demonstration to be selected by the student team.

Learning Experience #5 Students will determine what information would be needed to complete an informational report on an Arctic animal through brainstorming things we want to know. Students will be shown books and other resources available, and then will select an Arctic animal of their choice to report on.

Learning Experience #6 Students will read Storm Run, by Libby Riddles. Students will identify the challenges of the race and personality traits needed to overcome the challenges. Students will then respond to the literature through journal responses. Through reading Storm Run and other nonfiction sources, students will chart the information learned about the Iditarod Race, Alaska, and its people in the classroom and individual KWL Charts. Students will write a short biography of Libby Riddles from the information gathered in their reading of Storm Run and other classroom sources. This will serve as a model of writing a biography.

Learning Experience #7 Students will read Black Star, Bright Dawn, a realistic fiction book. Through DRTA and independent reading activities, students will record the factual and fictional elements of the book. Emphasis will be on the writer’s craft and on the descriptive details throughout, with the use of similes, metaphors, and personification. Through classroom discussions, students will find examples of similes and metaphors used to describe the factors influencing the main character’s outcome in the race. Students will parallel some of the writer’s craft in their daily musher journals during the actual race. Approximately three weeks.

Learning Experience #8 Daily Journal Data Collection and Writing Exercise This part of the unit will be completed from the first day of the race to the finish of the race.) After the flow chart procedure is introduced, students will access, record, and analyze data from the Internet sites concerning the musher, dogs, weather, and the checkpoints. This will be done on a daily basis to keep up with the statistics of the Iditarod mushers and their dog teams, along with the weather data. Students will access the sites throughout the race on a daily basis while going to keyboarding class and in some instances on a second trip to the computer lab. There they will gather the data for their musher journals which will later serve as the factual information for the realistic fiction books. Each day during math class, students will share their musher journals and will discuss statistics of the race. Instruction for additional literary elements to be added to their journals is then given.

Learning Experience #9 Given several objects have students sort and classify the objects. Ask if there is a way we can represent the objects graphically? Proceed to build a bar graph, representing the number of each item. Ask, "Did this make your sorting easier to read and understand?" Explain that graphs are ways of communicating information or data. Use Scott-Foresman Exploring Mathematics textbook pp.418-419 to build understanding about reading and interpreting bar graphs, pictographs, and line graphs. Using the graphs, answer the practice questions using a think-pair-share approach, going over #1-3 as a whole class. For practice, homework pp.420- 421#4-19. Go over the following day together. Independently P127worksheet. Homework E127 worksheet.

Learning Experience #10 On the following day, using internet site www.ilovealask.com, have students look up the population of one assigned checkpoint, and then look for the population statistics from 1890 – 1990 for that particular checkpoint. Ask students, "What type of graph would be most appropriate to use to tell about the population change over time?" After agreement, have students make a broken-line graph representing the data. Share. Then ask, "Is it possible to make different kinds of graphs representing the same data?" Suggest the pictograph. Ask what steps would be necessary in creating a pictograph. Develop the steps together, making a pictograph of the population of each checkpoint. Compare graphs, identifying parts of a line graph and the steps needed to build one.

Learning Experience #11 Ask the question, "What is a Census?" Discuss why a Census is taken and who is responsible for collecting the data. Explain that the first step is gathering the data. Second, discuss the title for the graph representing the data on both vertical and horizontal scales. Discuss why years needs to go on the horizontal scale, then using the census, round the numbers for the population. Decide, as a whole group, how the interval of the vertical scale must include all numerical data for the number of people living in a certain area. Emphasize that the vertical scale must be consistent. After graphing the town of Colton, have the students make a broken line graph of one of the checkpoints and make up questions that can be answered with the graph. Homework text p. 423 #1-10, do #1-3 using pairs-check before going on to the homework. On the following day, go over assignment and discuss answers. Quiz P128.

Learning Experience #12 Using textbook pp.424-425, introduce discussion of line graphs. Explain that a line graph explains the rate at which something happens. Ask, "Can you think of something involving rate of time for something to happen?" Explain that reading orally and silently are good examples of things we do which can be expressed as a rate over time. Say, "If a child can read 300 words in 3 minutes, how many minutes will it take the child to read a book which is 1500 words in length?" Make a graph to represent the data given. Go through the steps in the process, eliciting the steps from the students, having each child write out the steps as the steps are agreed upon. For additional practice within the classroom, complete pp. 424-425 #1-4 together, using think-pair-share approach. Independently, #5-15. Go over once completed. Ask students, "How fast do you believe a musher and his dog team travel?" Give the statistics for 1985. Ask, "If a dog team is traveling at a rate of 5 mile per hour, how far will he get in 24 hours?" Graph the information. Circulate to work with each group. Make sure the students write out the steps again. Follow with additional practice from pp.426-427. Display on an overhead project with student presenting.

Learning Experience #13 Have students pretend they took a test and have them write down the score they received. Next, use this data to make a line plot. Model finding the mean, mode, and median. Systematic process: Use shoe size to record everyone’s shoe size. Have students find the mean, median, and mode of the data. Ask which central tendency would be most useful to a shoe salesman? Why? Discuss. Are there measures of central tendency that are meaningless to this exercise? Given the musher biographies, students are to work in groups of four to record the data under the headings: age, birthplace, hometown (2000), occupation, and prior Iditarod Race experience. Have students decide how to analyze the data and graph. Students will use mean, median, and mode to describe the data results.

Learning Experience #14 Using textbook, pp. 202 –203, students will be introduced to wind chill charts and what wind chill is. They will discuss the two types of temperature scales previously studied and will discuss which one is more commonly used in the US. Students will relate through discussion that wind chill is always lower that air temperature. Given temperature and wind speed, students will find the wind chill. Given wind chill and the actual temperature, students will find the wind speed.

Learning Experience #15 Given a map of Alaska, students are asked to discuss and answer in written form guided questions that relate to land forms, location and population of checkpoints, distance between checkpoints and textual information on the map.

Learning Experience #16 Students will determine the genre of Black Star, Bright Dawn by looking at the defining elements of a biography, fairy tale, fantasy, and realistic fiction. Students will then develop and write their own realistic fiction, based upon information they have learned and compiled about the Iditarod Race and the challenges imposed upon the mushers and their dog sled teams. Students will discuss and analyze how mushers respond and prepare for the challenges as they race the Iditarod, and compare challenges faced by characters in their books, and by themselves in their own lives. They will respond, individually, in written format.

Students will write a realistic fictional story that portrays a musher’s experiences while participating in the 2000 Iditarod Race. Using the Iditarod Webquest site at www.geocities.com/goodapple_1999_2000 students will research relevant facts to use in their realistic fiction.

Task: You have been asked to participate in the 2000 Iditarod race as a musher and author to detail the events the race, with information about your dog team, the trail and its conditions, the weather, and the checkpoints along the trail. An appendix will include the graph of the population of the checkpoints, specific vocabulary relating to the running of a dog team, wind speed and daily temperature for each day of the race, the musher’s biography, and other realist Arctic challenges which can add to the plot of your Iditarod adventure. Musher journals from the actual race should be included.

Dimensions	Distinguished-Headed Into Nome-An Iditarod Champion	Proficient-Beating Down the Trail	Approaching Standards-Picking Up the Pace	Emerging- Looking for the Trail
Understanding of components of realistic fiction, with use of realistic statistics	Develops character, setting, and plot, using supportive examples of information learned about the Iditarod and Alaska. Draws conclusions from statistics that are relevant and realistic.	Satisfactorily develops character, plot, and setting, using supportive examples of information learned about the Iditarod and Alaska. Draws conclusions from the statistics	Weakly develops character and setting using some supportive examples of information learned about Alaska and draws conclusions that are sometimes accurate and relevant.	Character, setting, and plot are minimally developed with supportive accurate and relevant details. Statistics do not support conclusions drawn.
Organization	Distinctive logical plan of organization and coherence in the development of the story with ideas presented in a clear order and logically sequenced	Develops the story using acceptable plan of organization, with ideas presented in a clear order and logically sequenced. Writing is easy to follow.	Develops the story but demonstrates weakness in organization. Ideas are presented somewhat sequentially, but lacking coherence.	Develops story but lacks definite plan of organization. Story difficult to follow.
Language	Uses descriptive language and vocabulary, creating strong imagery that engages the reader.	Uses language and vocabulary appropriately with some sentence variety.	Some inappropriate use of language and vocabulary with sentence variation limited.	Language unclear causing difficulty in reader understanding.
Conventions	Writing generally free of errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.	Some errors, but meaning of writing is communicated	Errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, but the meaning for the writing is evident.	Problems with mechanics which interferes with the reader’s ability to comprehend the text meaning.
Mathematics	The content is free of any mathematical errors. Standards are more than met.	Contains only on or two inconsequential errors, math standards met.	Math conceptual error is present, but some understanding is shown.	Major conceptual errors exist. An awareness only is evident.

Much of the work completed on the Iditarod unit is done in collaborative groups, which allows for individual differences and peers helping each other in a reciprocal teaching style format. Students with special needs have been highly motivated by this unit, thus creating a positive bond between teacher, student, and home. The integrated format allows for a student with strengths other than math to feel connected through the subject matter, which is thus developing a new perspective on mathematics.

The time require to do this unit is approximately six weeks, however, in a self-contained classroom, this unit could take on a much larger focus incorporating many disciplines. The Iditarod, which starts the first Saturday in March, usually lasts about twenty-one days, dependent of course on the weather and trail conditions. Prior knowledge necessary to hook the students or motivate the students takes place before the actual race. It would be best to begin about four weeks before the actual start of the race to allow for greater understanding, therefore, completing the reading and spreadsheet basics before the onset of the race.

(Many of these resources and the learning experiences stated above could be omitted, depending on the Standards you hoped to have your students achieve.)

Miller, Debbie S.. Disappearing Lake: Nature's Magic in Denali National Park, 1997

Seibert, Patricia. Mush! Across Alaska in the World's Longest Sled Dog Race, 1992

Sheehan, Sherry. Dashing Through The Snow: The Story of the Junior Iditarod, 1997

The webquest template used for writing the webquest can be found on The WebQuest Page. Be sure to visit this site as there is also a webquest taxonomy which helps in developing tasks which ask students to go beyond mere recall.

For spreadsheets and word processing documents, students used AppleWorks, however, any word processing program could be used. Any web browser would also work.

This unit was an integration between the music, math, reading, and technology classrooms. It is advisable when using technology to have two adults as a resource for student questions. It could also easily be implemented with one teacher in a self-contained classroom, with one computer, however many modifications and additional time would be necessary.

Email with students in Alaska, add to the understanding of differences in cultures of the people of Alaska and New York, due to the five themes of geography: location, place, human-environmental interaction, movement, and region. If this can not be established, many teachers are willing to share, teacher-to-teacher.

LU Title: Dream A Dream: Reach A Goal	Author(s): Carol M. Frego, Sheila Harrington, Cyndy Hennessy
Grade Level: 5	School : Colton-Pierrepont Central School
Topic/Subject Area: Math/ Eng/Language Arts/Music/Technology	Address: 5 Maple Street, Colton, NY 13625
Email: : mailto:frego44@slic.com harrinsh@cpcs.k12.ny.us hennescy@cpcs.k12.ny.us	Phone/Fax: 315-262-2100

Declarative	Procedural
Students will develop an understanding by describing the origins of the Iditarod Race.	Students will demonstrate their ability to use a map of Alaska to identify geographical land forms, location, and population density of larger cities and checkpoints, distances between checkpoints, and the relation of Alaska’s size to the rest of the United States.
Students will identify/list the defining characteristics of the Iditarod – what it is, where it takes place, when and why it takes place, its rules, and its participants.	After gathering information from maps, books, videos and discussions, students will cooperatively produce and present characteristics of the Iditarod in the form of an Acrostic during an elementary school assembly.
Students will be able to describe the training and preparation that is required by Iditarod mushers and their dog teams.	After reading an autobiographical sketch of a musher’s account of his daily experiences in the Iditarod, students will then collect and analyze data to simulate the writing of that musher’s journal.
Students will identify the varied cultures of the Alaskan population.	With a flow chart, students will demonstrate their ability to locate a musher’s position, weather conditions and standings through accessing specific Iditarod sites listed on the flow chart.
Students will identify the animals present along the Iditarod Trail.	Students will demonstrate their ability to collect, analyze, and summarize information gained from their flow charts to produce a fictional musher’s journal entry while participating in the Iditarod Race.
Students will be able to identify a biography by listing the distinguishing characteristics of an autobiography and recognize the sequential events leading up to the writing of a biography.	Students will demonstrate their ability to conduct an interview with author and musher, Libby Riddles, through a teleconference. They will conduct a personal interview with a soon to be Iditarod participant from Ogdensburg, David French.
Students will be able to identify the distinguishing characteristics of realistic fiction and identify the facts that were used to provide the basis for a fictional story.	Students will read a realistic fiction, determine through example the difference between the factual and fictional elements, and will then create a realistic fiction story using the appropriate characteristics of the genre.
Students will begin to understand that literature can reflect people and society, a statistical account at times.	Students will demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between goals, the challenges set by the musher, and their preparation to meet the challenges of these goals.
Students will be able to identify pictographs, line graphs, and bar graphs	Students will graph population change of the checkpoints along the Iditarod Trail, given statistical data from the www.ilovealaska.com site. Graphs will cover 1880 –1990 censuses. Students will then make up questions as to why the changes that have occurred in population, therefore, leading to the discussion that line graphs represents data changing over time.
	Students will then develop a class pictograph of population data for 1998 from statistical data from the http://www.ilovealaska.com site.
	Students will calculate the mean, median, and mode for population data, after classroom instruction on finding the mean through weather data from Colton over a 5-day period.
	Students will collect daily temperature of the checkpoints, and the wind speed to determine the wind chill. This will be done after instruction from Scott-Foresman Exploring Mathematics text PP.202-203, classroom practice, and independent practice. Discussion over the most often used scale in the US is Fahrenheit, while some people use Celsius. Consideration should be given to the type of scale used.
	Using the 2000 musher biographies from the http://www.iditarod.com/ site, students will complete a chart to find age, birthplace, present home location, occupation, and previous Iditarod Experiences. Students will decide what type of graph would be appropriate to use to compare data about the mushers, and within cooperative groups, students will graph the data.

TitleIII Technology Literacy Challenge Grant

Learning Unit