Neighbor News
Follow Iditarod’s 2020 Teacher on the Trail: Kelly Villar ’06 MA
Kelly Villar, a teacher for the past 16 years in Mansfield, Conn., was selected as the Iditarod Teacher on the Trail for 2020.
Kelly (Heffley) Villar ’06 MA, a second-grade teacher for the past 16 years at Southeast Elementary School in Mansfield, Conn., was selected as the Iditarod Teacher on the Trail for 2020.
A mother of six children ages 8 to 23, Villar is a longtime outdoors woman and avid fan of the Iditarod, an annual sled race that covers 1,000 miles of terrain across Alaska, from Anchorage to Nome. Since 2000, the Teacher of the Trail program has selected one teacher each year to serve as the liaison between the trail and learners, creating lesson plans that are inspired by the real-life applications of the race and then made available online for all teachers.
The race officially began March 7, and Villar has been tracking her experience with blog posts and photos on Iditarod's Teacher on the Trail blog since arriving in Alaska in February. Here are excerpts from her ongoing Iditarod blog.