The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

YES Prep East End Celebrates Geography Bee Winners

January 25, 2011 by Kaitlyn King

Last week at YES Prep East End, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students competed in the preliminary rounds of the National Geographic Bee. Students answered seven rounds of questions ranging from United States geography to physical and cultural geography, to the seven continents. Of those who participated in the preliminary rounds, ten finalists qualified to compete in the school-wide bee, which was held on Monday, January 10th.

The school-wide bee began with the Final Round, which included all 10 contestants. There were five eighth graders, 3 seventh graders, and 2 sixth graders represented in the final competition. In the first round of questions, Andrew Cerna, a sixth grader, was the only contestant to answer correctly with the response, “Arizona” to his question: “In which western state can you hike the red rocks of Sedona and the jagged Mogollon Rim?” This qualified Andrew to automatically be placed in the Championship Round to compete for the school winner position.

Two more rounds of questioning occurred before the second contestant for the Championship Round was determined. The next finalist was Mauricio Martinez, also a sixth grader, who was the only contestant to answer correctly to his question in the 3rd round. In this round, students had to look at an unlabeled map of the United States with latitude and longitude lines and answer a question using the map. Mauricio answered correctly with the response, “Pennsylvania” to this question: “The coordinates 40N latitude, 80W longitude intersect close to the southwest border of what state?” With only 15 seconds to answer, Mauricio’s map skills enabled him to find correct intersection and answer correctly!

Moving into the Championship Round, the final contestants had to answer 3 questions. The contestant who answered the most correctly would win. Judge Kyrlyn Chatten had to make a tough decision when Mauricio had a very close answer to the first question, but it was ultimately determined that his answer would not qualify in a state or national bee. Both contestants were unable to answer the 3 championship questions, so a final tiebreaker question was used. Andrew Cerna won with his correct answer of “Egypt” to the question: “The site of an ancient lighthouse on the island of Pharos attracts visitors to Alexandria, a port city in which African country?” Victory was claimed by Andrew for his Denver University homeroom, Water society, and the sixth-grade class!

East End is proud of our sixth-grade students that demonstrated their geographic knowledge in the Geography Bee! Andrew’s achievement was celebrated with an awards presentation in which East End High School English teacher Ms. Chatten awarded him with an official certificate and medal. Andrew will take the 2011 National Geography Bee qualifying test next week, which will be sent in for grading to see if he qualifies for one of the top one hundred spots to compete in the state Geography Bee in April. Go Explorers!
 

--
0 Comments
Be the first to leave a comment