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Where In The World?
By Jeanne starmack
struthers
You likely know that Oregon is bigger than Connecticut.
Perhaps you could guess that Gibraltar is across a narrow stretch of water from — Africa. But if you didn’t know that Yamoussoukro is the capital of the west African country Ivory Coast, you aren’t alone.
In the Struthers Middle School leg of the school-level competition of the National Geographic Bee, the geography questions started out pretty simple and got progressively tougher. By the last of seven rounds in the Friday afternoon contest, the mighty were falling.
“Repeat the question, please,” said — just about all 28 of the seventh- and eighth-graders who participated.
Moderator Anton Kos, their social studies teacher, obliged. But few questions were answered correctly in that last round.
Struthers middle-schoolers who progress to the state, then national competitions might try to remember that Nanduti is an intricate kind of lace introduced by Spanish colonists in the landlocked South American country north of Argentina called Paraguay.
It wouldn’t hurt them to squirrel away the knowledge that Malawi shares its name with a lake and borders Mozambique.
If they can learn the names of enough far-flung places and where those places are, there could be a big payoff. The first-place national winner in the May 25 finals will receive a $25,000 scholarship, a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.
Advancing to the final round at the school-level competition, which will take place Monday, are seventh-graders Emily Gavalier, Nick Mozingo and A.J. Reichman; and eighth-graders Jameson Maffei, Jacob Faulk-King, Adam Farley, Ben Brammer and Jonathan Miller.
The school’s winner will take a written test. Up to 100 of the top scorers in each state will be eligible to compete in their state bees April 1.
The National Geographic Society will provide an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for state champions and teacher-escorts for the national championship rounds May 24 and 25.
Alex Trebek, host of television game show “Jeopardy!,” will moderate the national finals May 25.