“If we can just find a way to attach this to their heads we will be all ready to go, set, action with a Polar Husky cam!” exclaims Aaron.  A Polar Husky head cam is exciting alright! Like any good research project, half of the fun is figuring just how it is all going to work out. We quickly decided that Beacon should be the first "cam-dog," being that Beacon is a pretty gun-ho kind of guy. Andrea headed up the project to mount the camera and it is a good thing the tiny camera sits in a thick plastic
casing since Beacon is just running as usual completely unfazed by the
big straps wrapping his head!

	The first Polar Husky Cam of the year!

Beacon is running with Rubi, and right in front of him is Kodiak and Sisu in point following Lightning and Tucker in lead.

Tracker in her first classroom
Watch Snow Shoe Races!
Listen to how Ms. Mottinger is using     GoNorth! in her classroom!

Speaking of running, we know of at least one classroom out there that has taken on this year's Polar Husky Challenge! Tracker’s first destination on her Classroom Expedition 2010 took her to Neil Elementary in Minnesota. At Neil Elementary she took part in reading Polar Husky Novels (we are keeping an eye out to see the reviews online)! Then, on day 5 Tracker and the students strapped on their snowshoes and had a race to kick off the Polar Husky Challenge chipping away at the 1000-mile challenge!


On the expedition trail the Polar Huskies and each one team member travels 1,000 miles individually. The challenge is for you to do the same! You can take on this challenge as a class or in teams. So get moving and grooving and send-a-note to let us know how you are keeping up the progress!

	Watch Tim and Paul making tools

The students at Neil Elementary also made it outside with Tracker to do some snow depth measurements, just like we will be doing on the trail working with students in the communities in Greenland along the route. That was one of the big tasks this week. We are putting together a ‘kit’ for each community so that they have the tools to do their observations that they share with us and GoNorth! Cool Scientists like Dr. Foster at NASA as part of the program “What Is Climate Change to You?”

	A hawk observed the Polar        Huskies on a training run

Doing observations is how Ms. Jones’ class in New York kicked off the first week. They walked around their school observing and smelling the trees, feeling the chill of standing in puddles (!), and listening to the birds as they report in their post to the Explore Zone. “I am so excited to see the posts in the Zones and I have no doubt how hard it will be to select the Zone winners come May!” says Mille. Make sure you share your explorations with the rest of us in the Explore Zone!


Ms. Gore from North Carolina also wrote to let us know her students are working on GoNorth! presentations!  We hope they share these presentations in the Zones. Ms. Gore also said they were very excited to take part in the first chat!


“It was fantastic to see how many classrooms took part of the chat,” says Mille with the biggest of grins. “We even had some students asking questions from Hungary!” Yes, there were actually so many questions fielded to Mille that some questions had to be answered in the Q and A section on Friday!

Greetings from Ms. Weipert and her students in Lower Alabama USA

From Lower Alabama, Ms. Weipert writes, “My students and I were thoroughly intrigued by today's live chat. The students are excited to begin their learning adventure with Go North! and greatly enjoyed the chance to participate in the chat with Mille. In fact, this was the first time that any of my students had participated in a classroom chat and were spellbound the entire time. The discussions tied in with our own learning surrounding adventures. The kids are currently writing their own adventure stories and are reading adventures stories from around the world. Hearing Mille's tales first hand really gave them inspiration and motivation!”

	Aaron checking up on satellite phone        connection
	Explore Jerabeks and the exhibit of    GoNorth! pictures there. What Polar    Huskies do you recognize?
	Watch a birds eye view    on Polar Husky Running!

Tune in to this week’s chat about Arctic Exploration to talk adventure with expedition team member Aaron on Wednesday March 3 at 10 AM CT! Aaron also shared tales of Arctic Adventures at Jerabek’s this past week - a local bakery that supports GoNorth!.  Aaron has also been more than busy making sure that we will be all set up to share the adventures from the trail pouring over every detail of our technology that we are bringing to Greenland and out on the expedition trail. Aaron is making sure each piece of technology is packed with energy sources to charge everything up with power.


The Polar Huskies are already charged! After 3 months of training and running 5-6 hour training runs on most days, it is safe to say the are ready for prime-time action. Beacon, who is this week’s Polar Husky Superstar, even ran with a camera on his head!


Make sure to check out this week’s Expedition Movies to watch every possible angle about what is going on  during a training run with the PolarHuskies…

Polar Husky Superstar Beacon
Watch Beacon getting ready, set, go    on the line for a training run!

While he is maybe not the most charged when it comes to hard work, few can get as excited as Beacon when he is ready and set to go! He is normally all fired up and super-duper happy. Extremely playful, very intelligent and somewhat easily bored, luckily Beacon is one to look for ways to entertain himself (and others)—as anyone who follows him on his Beacon Blog is probably well aware off! Beacon loves action. At any little change, Beacon will simply start loping, and with his powerful chest he easily gets the rest of the team flying with the sled to follow. And yes, he is extremely vocal about it too! So vocal it can actually be a bit of a problem. A really nice guy, Beacon is one that runs with pretty much any dog in the kennel, but he does, unfortunately, love to growl. A lonely pup, we are actually thinking that Beacon maybe never grow to understand that growling is considered negative by the other dogs in the kennel. Or maybe, just maybe, he is simply that charged up, ready and set for some action!