How can students from a suburban school near Cleveland, Ohio and students from North Lamar ISD in Paris Texas meet a dog sled racer??
Through Videoconferencing that’s how!
Mrs. Michelich a third grade teacher at Avon Heritage South Elementary School created an interactive project for her third grade group and shared the summary activity with the students of North Lamar. The third grade students read the Stone Fox during reading, kept journals on selected mushers in language arts and graphed the mushers progress in math class. Mrs. Atkins fourth grade class created journals and graphed mushers in their computer class. The classes agreed to connect over videoconferencing to share the data collected about their mushers.
As an enhancement to the program the schools connected to Northern Michigan University for the Meet the Musher virtual field trip. In the University TV studio one of the staff members from NMU brought in her dog sled, her guide lines and one of her race dogs. The students discussed the parts of the sled, training procedures of the team, race commands and the supplies need to complete a dog sled race. The students were treated with video of a race and pictures of the racers kennel. The presentation gave the students a better understanding of the sport of dog sled racing and how difficult it is for racers in the Iditarod to complete the race.
After the presentation the schools stayed connected and shared their data in a newcast format. The students from North Lamar stole the show brining in a husky representing their racers lead dog. The students from both sites enjoyed both parts of the conference. The sites used the last minutes of the bridge time to ask questions about each others communities and weather.
Great Job NMU and North Lamar!
