Each year, the Idita-Rider auction is held as a fund raiser for the race. Race fans from around the world bid on line to purchase a ’seat’ in a musher’s sled at the start of the Iditarod.
To race fans, the Idita-Rider Auction is the opportunity to experience the ceremony and celebration of the race while seeing the race from the perspective of the dogsled. Interested fans bid at the auction section of the site for a ride during the start of the Iditarod. Idita-riders travel from the starting banner of the race in downtown Anchorage to Campbell Air Strip, a journey past crowds of cheering fans.
To students, the auction is an opportunity to read, write, and practice math skills.
The final day to bid is in January. Your students can follow the bidding at the Iditarod Auction section of the website.
Suggested activities:
Math: Before the conclusion of bidding: Predict the selling price for each musher’s sled. Predict the total amount of money that will be raised through this auction. After the bidding: Create charts and graphs to show the bidding results. Create story problems to practice grade appropriate math skills for your class. (Example, ask students to choose any 5 mushers and add up the final bid to get a total sum raised over those 5 mushers. Find the range, mean, and mode for the final bids or for a specific number of mushers.)
Writing: Journal writing topic: Which musher would you want to ride with and why? Describe the sights and sounds of riding in a musher’s sled as an Idita-Rider. Write an introductory paragraph introducing ‘you’ as the Idita Rider for one of the mushers. Tell who you are, where you are from, why you wanted to be an Idita-Rider, and your goals for the future
Art: Create posters to advertise the Idita- Auction.
Community Connection: Community Awareness, Research, and Service Learning: Compare and contrast a fund raiser in your own community. Develop a service learning project challenging students to fund raise for a project in their school or community.
Classroom Management: Hold your own ‘virtual auction’. After student earn points according to your own classroom rules and procedures, allow students to use the points to purchase ‘rides’ with mushers in a classroom auction.
Visit the Idita-Auction website to learn more about the auction and to follow the bidding. If you are going to be in Alaska for the start of the race, consider bidding on a sled. Click here!
