Education Alaskan public schools system consists of 490 schools, 54 school districts, 126,463 students and 9,053 certified teachers.

Student ethnicity: 65.3% White, 23.1% Alaskan Native / American Indian, 4.2% Asian, 4.9% Black and 2.6% Hispanic

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Geography Alaska is larger than the next four largest states combines.	The Alaska Highway runs 1,500 miles from Dawson Creek, Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.	Alaska contains 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the U.S.
Alaska is only 30 miles from Russia (at Little Diomede Island).	Kodiak Island is the largest island in the U.S.	The largest gold nugget ever found in Alaska was discovered in 1903 near Nome and weighed 155 troy ounces or 10.6 normal pounds.
Glaciers cover approximately 30,000 square miles, or 3% of Alaska.	There is approximately 1.02 square miles for each person in Alaska.	Alaska boasts the northernmost (Point Barrow), the easternmost (Pochnoi Point on Semisopochnoi Island in the Aleutians), and the westernmost (Amatignak Island in the Aleutians) points in the United States.
At Barrow, a city near the top of Alaska, the summer sun does not set for 85 days and in the winter it does not rise for 67 days.	On March 27, 1964, Alaska had a giant earthquake registering 9.2 on the Richter scale. The strongest earthquake ever recorded on the North American continent.

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Water Alaska has more coastline than the rest of the U.S. combined.	There are more than 3,000,000 (3 million) lakes in Alaska.
Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground, can extend to a depth of 2,000 feet below the surface.	The second greatest tide range in North America occurs in Cook Inlet near Anchorage, where the maximum change in tide is as high as 38.9 feet. The Bay of Fundy in Novia Scotia has tides to 43 feet.

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People One-half of Alaska's population lives in Anchorage.	The main native peoples of Alaska include Aleuts, Inupiat Eskimos, Yupik Eskimos, and the Athapaskan, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes.
Eskimo Ice Cream, also called "akutak" is a native delicacy and is traditionally made of whipped berries, seal oil, Crisco and snow.	Cabin fever is a state of mind blamed on cold, dark winter weather and can cause depression, discontent, and violence. It has been described as "a 12-foot stare in a 10-foot room."
There are more private airplane pilots (1 out of every 55 people) per capita in Alaska than in any other state.	The Iditarod sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome is 1,049 miles long and usually takes between 11 and 20 days to finish.

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Animals Alaska's state bird is the ptarmigan.	Caribou are the only deer which both sexes grow antlers.	The moos is the largest member of the deer family and can weigh over 1,500 pounds!
The muskox is a long-haired oxen that is a holdover from the Ice Age.	Alaska has the world's largest concentration of eagles along the Chilkat River where as many as 3,500 eagles feast on a winter salmon run.	The Kodiak brown bear is the largest land bear in the world and can weigh over 1,000 pounds. The polar bear, which stays mostly in the water, can weigh up to 1,500 pounds.

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Fish The largest king salmon caught by a rod and reel weighed just under 100 pounds from the Kenai River.

Halibut are flat fish and live on the bottom of the ocean. They can weigh over 450 pounds.

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Weather The Aurora Borealis, colored waves of light in the night sky, are caused by charged electrons from sunspot activity that strike gas particles in the earth's atmosphere.	Thompson Pass near Valdez averages over 500 inches of snow each year.
The highest ever recorded temperature in Alaska was 100 degrees F in Fort Yukon.	The lowest ever recorded temperature in Alaska was -80 degrees F in the Brooks Range.

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History Alaska was bought from Russia in 1867 for only 7.2 million dollars.	Alaska was first settled by Russians because of the rich quantity of animal furs.
Many Alaskan communities were founded during the gold rush days.	Sitka was Alaska's first official capital city, but Juneau later became today's capitol.

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Park Lands Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is the largest national park in the U.S.

Denali National Park is home to Mt. Denali (formerly Mt. McKinley), the tallest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet above sea level.

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