The North Shore Community School hosted a special day of learning for its second graders.

For 18 years, the school hosts its Ikidarod race. The kids pretend to be mushers and sled dogs as they race all across their nature trail. One kid sits in the sled and the rest pull them along like the dogs.

It’s a day of fun but most importantly it a day of implied learning. The entire month the learn the history and culture of the sport and put everything together for the race. At checkpoints along the trail they got snacks and were quizzed about Beargrease and the Iditarod.

Organizer and second grade teacher Anne Lampela says it’s a joy to see all the learning be applied.

“Teaching in the classroom walls, we’re learning. But for them to actually come out and apply it and for me to see everything that we are learning is very rewarding,” she says.