The Geography Bee has rolled around again for the 29th year in a row, the Geography bee is a competition where contestants anywhere from fourth grade to eighth grade can compete in a competition on  eight different categories. These categories include, Cultural Geography, Economic Geography, Across-the-Country, Science, Geographic Compressions, Physical Geography, and Odd-item-out that is when contestants are given three options and are told to choose one from the three options that is false.

The first round yielded the following qualifiers, with sixth grader Luke Kuang and eighth grader Robert Curtis scoring the highest:

First	Last	Grade	SS Teacher
Maninder	Dhillon	8	Streitman
Jenny	Fu	8	Streitman
Riley	Jones	8	Streitman
Jack	Dominish	8	Streitman
Natalia	Sanchez	7	Doubrava
Dominic	Casey	6	Powall
Anirudh	Sriram	8	Catullo
Grace	Frazier	8	Catullo
Jimmy	Turcoliveri	8	Catullo
Stevie	Michinock	8	Catullo
Kenza	Mahdaoui	8	Tretanelli
Morgan	DeSantis	8	Streitman
Matthew	Bell	6	Powall
Daniel	Hearn	8	Catullo
Andrew	Ferenac	8	Catullo
Mykenna	Roy	8	Catullo
Lindsey	Urban	8	Catullo
Ivan	Zamyatin	7	Pretnar
Matthew	Thomas	7	Pretnar
Praval	Jiddu	6	Fasola
Pranav	Sompalle	7	Doubrava
Robert	Curtis	8	Streitman
Luke	Kuang	6	Yas

The Geography Bee, organized by Mrs. Bean,  involves taking tests in social studies class. The competitors are divided into groups of twenty and each contestant is asked one question from the current category they are in. The categories include Cultural Geography, Economic Geography, Across-the-Country, Science, Geographic Compressions, Physical Geography, and Odd-item-out; that is when contestants are given three options and are told to choose one from the three options that is false.

The contestant will receive one point for each right answer and after all the rounds are completed, the top ten competitors who have the most points will move on to a new round.

According to Wikipedia’s explanation to the Geography bee for scoring with competitors,  “Quite often there is a tie, in which case a semi-final tiebreaker round is needed. For example, if six players finished the preliminary rounds with eight points and fifteen finished with seven points, the six who finished with eight points automatically advance to the final competition.

The fifteen with seven points move into the semi-final round where the top four are determined to fill the remainder of the seats in the finals. This is done by asking every player the same question at the same time and giving each player twelve seconds to write down the answer. After that round competitors move on to the finals, where competitors can not ask judges for a repeat or spelling of a question.

Some of the questions can be challenging to the competitors, Mrs.Stritman explained: ””I think the Geography Bee is awesome! I like watching students challenge themselves, even when they don’t know the answers to many of the questions.”  Mrs.Stritman has fun encouraging her students and believes that when students struggle with the test they can be inspired to learn more about the world they live in. Mrs.Bean commented, “It is fun, but the process and questions are very guided by National Geographic, so there isn’t wiggle room for creative approaches”.

One of the three teachers for eighth grade, Mr.Catullo, feels like it’s fun for the kids to do something that is competitive but also fun because geography is not taught a lot in school. He added that it’s fun to watch kids get far in the competition and cheer for them.

Mrs.Trentanelli enjoys doing the qualification tests along with the students to see how much she really knows.

The Geography Bee has been a fun activity for students for years and will be for  years to come with new challenging and difficult  questions.

The next round for the qualifiers above will be January 5th.