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The Iditarod, known as the Last Great Race, is an annual reconstruction of the 1925 sled dog relay to get diphtheria medicine from Nenana, Alaska, to Nome during hazardous blizzard conditions. It took five and a half days for twenty teams and approximately 150 dogs to travel 674 miles with the valuable package containing diphtheria antitoxin. 

In the late 1960s, Joe Redington, Sr., and Dorothy Page began advocating for an Iditarod race to preserve the trail used in 1925, which connects remote Alaskan villages and serves as a winter supply route for goods. After two short races in 1967 and 1969, the Iditarod became an international event that occurs each March on the 1049-mile route between Nome and Anchorage.

The Iditarod fascinates children and adults and offers many opportunities to engage students by introducing different perspectives. Students can learn the stories behind mushers and their dogs, track the race’s progress, and follow the weather as it progresses.

Visit the Iditarod Home Page (reviewed here) for the latest race news or to sign up for race updates. The site also includes race maps, historical information, background information on the mushers and dogs, and much more. Visit Iditarod EDU to access lessons, a virtual Iditarod museum, and posts written by K9 journalists sharing their learning along the trail. 

As you plan to include the Iditarod in your lessons, take advantage of these AI tools to differentiate learning, enhance productivity, and offer creative activities that engage students in the learning process.

AI Tools for Generating Lessons and Presentations

Use the AI tools below to create differentiated learning materials by adjusting the topic or choosing different grade levels to meet your students’ learning requirements. Don’t forget to check your outputs: it’s important that you always check results for accuracy and bias when using AI to generate content. 

1. Curipod (reviewed here) generates lesson presentations based on your prompt. Ask Curipod to create a lesson about the Iditarod and choose the content area focus of your lesson, such as writing, science, math, or social studies. After your presentation is generated, use additional AI features to add polls, an AI whiteboard, or a question incorporating AI feedback. This example of a Curipod lesson uses this simple prompt with a social studies focus:
   
   Generate a lesson about the Iditarod that includes information about the race to deliver diphtheria medicine in 1925, background on the racers and their dogs, and information about the modern Iditarod.
    
   Here are some additional topic ideas for other subjects:
   • Social Studies: Create interactive presentations comparing historical sled dog routes.
   • Science: Explore climate adaptations of sled dogs and Arctic ecosystems.
   • Math: Calculate race statistics, distances, speeds, and team performance metrics.
     
2. MagicSchool (reviewed here) allows you to create slide presentations that export to Google Slides. These presentations only include text, but you can use the AI tool in Google Slides to generate images for each slide based on the content. MagicSchool contains other helpful tools for preparing lessons, such as a choice board idea generator, real-world connection ideas, and a YouTube questions generator you can use with your chosen video. In addition to presentations, you can ask MagicSchool to:
   • Generate differentiated worksheets matching student learning levels.
   • Create real-world connection activities linking Iditarod history to contemporary issues.
   • Develop assessment materials in different styles and difficulty levels.
     
3. Use Mootion (reviewed here) and inVideo AI (reviewed here) to generate informational videos about the Iditarod that are based on your prompt or your content. Both tools include options for editing, but Mootion also contains a downloadable storyboard and several options for the visual style of your video. Download Mootion videos to your device to share with students, or upload to YouTube to share with a link. inVideo AI lets you download videos to your device or a share link to view it online. Check out this Mootion example and this video made with inVideo AI. Here are a few additional prompt ideas:
   • Generate documentary-style videos exploring the race’s history.
   • Ask students to create video projects documenting their research.
   • After conducting a comparative analysis of historical and modern Iditarod experiences, have students share their results in a video format.

Find many more AI tools for lesson planning by visiting TeachersFirst’s special topics collection AI for Lesson Planning.

6 AI Tools for Creating Learning Objects

These tools and resources can help you generate differentiated materials to better support your students, such as a timeline to serve as a visual aid or a podcast to provide a user-friendly overview of the race.

• With MyLens (reviewed here), you can generate AI timelines, mind maps, and tables to use as visual learning aids. Using visual tools such as timelines and mindmaps helps students clarify the sequence of events and understand additional information in context with the big picture. For example, you can ask MyLens to create a timeline for the Iditarod or create a mind map to find topics for students to explore. After generating a mindmap, click on any subtitle and choose Drill Down or write to add details to your visual. Need a different topic? Try:
  • Using the mind mapping feature to identify indigenous cultures and sled dog traditions.
  • Asking the tool to create a visual analysis of the race routes and geographic challenges.
    
• Napkin AI (reviewed here) uses artificial intelligence to create a story from your prompt or text. Bring your content to life and promote student engagement by clicking to the left of each paragraph to add colorful graphics that support the content. Choose from many options, including Venn Diagrams, flow charts, and timelines. This example tells the story of the Iditarod and includes visuals that help depict this famous race. Each Napkin’s content is editable and provides options for personalization by adding text, sketches, and images. Create a Napkin to share with students as an introduction to the Iditarod or copy students’ writing into Napkin AI and add visuals for a professional-looking presentation. This tool also gives you the opportunity to:
  • Share storytelling projects from musher perspectives.
  • Write stories that include visual representation of race logistics.
  • Include infographics in student writing projects about race preparation and challenges.
    
• Use Piktochart (reviewed here) to create lists, newsletters, comparisons, timelines, and charts, or add a prompt or upload a document to generate an image. Choose from an assortment of templates and colors to include, then click Edit to finalize and access sharing options, which include a URL and an embed code you can use to add your work on a website. You can also:
  • Use “the Iditarod” as a prompt to generate an informational newsletter. You could also create one about the dogs, mushers, and locations along the Iditarod route.
  • Design comparative charts of race years that include number of racers, time to complete the race, and statistics about each of the dog teams.
    
• SchoolAI (reviewed here) allows you to engage learners by introducing them to chatbots with whom they can discuss the Iditarod. Search SchoolAI to find premade spaces, which include tools that allow students to “chat” with a musher and learn about the race’s history. Make your own space to share with students that focuses specifically on race components such as weather, mapping the trail, and training dogs to participate in the race. Try this chatbot to begin a conversation about the Iditarod as a student would. You could also use this tool to:
  • Conduct interactive historical research simulations, such as learning about the diphtheria outbreak during the 1920s.
  • Encourage students to engage in learning about sled race logistics.
  • Develop learning experiences about Arctic exploration and Alaskan geography.
    
• Animate from Audio (reviewed here) allows you to generate animated characters that use your voice to share stories about the Iditarod. Choose from different character options to bring different perspectives to the storytelling features. For example, choose Truffles, a white rabbit, to tell the story of the Iditarod as it passes by his location, or select a young human character to share their ambitions about becoming a participant in the race. These are just a few ways you can use this tool to share students’ storytelling projects:
  • Transform different types of writing projects, such as poetry, creative writing, and nonfiction.
  • Integrate creative perspective-taking exercises by telling the story of the Iditarod from the perspective of a musher, the dogs, and spectators along the route.
    
• NotebookLM (reviewed here) can turn your documents, videos, slide presentations, websites, and more into student study materials. Add one or more sources, then visit the notes section to create a timeline, study guide, FAQs, and a briefing document. Additional resources include a chat area students can use to ask questions and learn more about the topic. NotebookLM can also create a discussion-style podcast about your subject that includes a new option where students can “join” the podcast by asking questions as the audio plays. You can also use this tool to: 
  • Encourage groups to compile information on collaborative research projects.
  • Share podcasts and study guides with students to enhance learning through different modalities.
  • Build learning resources for cross-curricular content.

Watch our on-demand OK2Ask workshop AI for Creating Learning Objects for even more resources and ideas for using learning objects in your classroom. 

The Iditarod offers educators many opportunities to create and share meaningful learning experiences across multiple subjects. These AI tools provide many features to transform your current teaching materials into engaging, differentiated lessons that bring the excitement and history of this iconic race to life. 

How do you use AI to enhance lessons and engage students in learning? Share your ideas in the comments below so we can learn together.