Lyme-Old Lyme HS Among Top Schools In Geography Challenge

From Lyme-Old Lyme Public Schools: A team of 5 students from Fairfield Warde High School of Fairfield won the 28th annual Connecticut High School Geography Challenge at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain on Wednesday, May 22. The Connecticut High School Geography Challenge is an annual statewide interscholastic academic team competition hosted by Central Connecticut State University and its Department of Geography. The theme of this year’s highly competitive event was “Global Health and Disease”.

Two teams of five students each from Lyme—Old Lyme High School finished second and fourth, and Housatonic Valley Regional High School’s team from Falls Village came in third. The second place Lyme—Old Lyme High School team was composed of students Juliette Atkinson, Kathryn Atkinson, Rachael Larson, Ryan McTigue, and Connie Pan. The fourth place Lyme—Old Lyme High School team students were Tess Allan, Eleanor Dushin, William Larson, Nikolai Stephens-Zumbaum, and Alex Williams. Only 12 points separated the top four teams.

Lyme—Old Lyme High School’s second place team at the 2019 Connecticut High School Geography Challenge held at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain on May 22, 2019

Eighteen high school teams from around Connecticut competed in events focused on this year’s theme of “Global Health and Disease”. In the morning students scoured the CCSU campus in a modified orienteering event, read traditional maps and online GIS information in the map reading activity, and hunted for a gang of spies in a virtual scavenger hunt problem-solving activity. In the afternoon all teams competed in a geography quiz bowl. These events all had thematic “Global Health and Disease”-related questions for students to solve and answer.

The Connecticut high schools that competed were—

• Bethel High School (Jessica Christensen, teacher)
• Howell Cheney Regional Vocational-Technical High School, Manchester (Anthony Urciuoli and Adam Starvish, teachers)
• Danbury High School (Jose Machado and Christine Riter, teachers)
• Fairfield Warde High School (Robert Mendenhall, teacher)
• Housatonic Valley Regional High School, Falls Village (Peter Vermilyea, teacher)
• Lyme—Old Lyme High School (Glenn Elliott and Aron D’Aquila, teachers)
• Middletown High School (Trevor Charles, teacher)
• Ridgefield High School (Eileen Stewart, teacher)
• Edwin O. Smith High School, Storrs (Russ Niederwerfer, teacher)
• South Windsor High School (Erin Simcik, teacher)
• Trumbull High School (Breanne Brienza, teacher)
• Wethersfield High School (Michael Ferrell and Kelly Zaleski, teachers)
• Wilton High School (Alex Koutsoukos)
• J.M. Wright Regional Vocational-Technical High School, Stamford (Gregg French, teacher)

For additional information on the Connecticut High School Geography Challenge, contact Dr. Cynthia Pope, Ph.D. at popec@ccsu.edu or Connecticut Geographic Alliance teacher consultant Kathleen Ryan at Ryanzenko@aol.com .