At Greenwich Academy, preparing students for their roles in the global community has become a top priority. Across all three divisions and all academic disciplines, faculty and students engage daily in assessing their place in the 21st century landscape. No wonder then, that the National Geographic Geography Bee was embraced with such high hopes and excitement in the Middle School. The format, a “Bee”-style competition and game, captured the girls’ sense of fun and readiness for an academic challenge.
Assistant Head of the Middle School Susan Doyle began the final GA round of competition for the National Geographic Geography Bee on Wednesday, December 7, by introducing the finalists and detailing the preliminary steps that had to take to get to this level of competition. In Groups V and VI, students had competitions in history classes, and Groups VII and VIII did theirs in Current Events. They were encouraged to use the National Geographic resources to prepare. These included daily quizzes and a series of apps, readily accessible on the National Geographic website. The top 30 students from all grades did another preliminary round of questions, and the top 10 scorers were the finalists for the assembly on December 7.
On board as taskmasters were “Indiana Joe” (aka Joe Knowlton) from the Tech Department and Duff Center co-director Connie Blunden who read the rules for each round and then began the stream of questions. The girls were courageous and confident on stage, and members of the audience, including a panel of faculty judges, held their breath in anticipation of each answer. As the completion unfolded, girls were required to answer questions orally, write down answers on whiteboards, and answer questions that analyzed population growth in the United States while looking at a map. Going into the Championship Round, Group V student Alex Stengel and Group VII student Jo DeWaal remained. Finally, it came down to Jo, who earned her victory by getting more (2 out of 3) of the championship questions correct and Alex capturing runner-up status after a valiant bid for the championship. Both contestants demonstrated poise and grace, demonstrating that they indeed had learned a great deal on their Geo Bee journey.
