OJAI : Geography Bees Keep Schools Abuzz With Knowledge

Students and teachers are celebrating the revival of geography, and contests sponsored by the National Geographic Society are helping to increase the subject’s popularity and make it fun.

Schools countywide are holding geography bees, including several Ojai schools where students competed over the past two weeks.

In the contests, similar to spelling bees, students in grades four through eight match wits, taking turns to answer progressively tougher questions.

At Meiners Oaks Elementary School, 300 students lugged desk chairs into the cafeteria to watch 12 finalists compete for the school championship.

Aaron Lawson, a sixth-grader, beat Jessie Wiseman, a fourth-grader unnerved by “all those eyes staring at me.”

Jessie blanked out on the Ohio city known for its rubber products.

The answer is Akron.

Aaron, who cinched his victory by selecting Anchorage over Fairbanks as Alaska’s most populous city, later confessed, “I’d never heard of Fairbanks.”

At Matilija Junior High School, seventh-grade student Michael Mellein was nonchalant after eliminating 22 competitors in a combination oral and written contest.

Michael also won school geography bees in the fifth and sixth grades, and was a classroom champion in the fourth grade.

At Mira Monte Elementary School, fifth-grade student Tyson Silvestri defeated eight competitors, winning over sixth-grade student Matthew Bergdahl in the final round.

After his victory, classmates hoisted Tyson to their shoulders for a triumphal exit from a packed student assembly room.

At Topa Topa Elementary School, each of the 10 classroom winners wrote answers to 25 oral questions in a quiet, academic atmosphere, witnessed only by a few friends.

When papers were scored, Shawn Andrews, a fifth-grade student, won with 19 correct answers, followed by fourth-grade student Chris Babayco with 14.

During the 1960s, geography “was merged into social studies and got lost,” said Barbara Fallon, a spokeswoman for the National Geographic Society in Washington.

Educators hail the return of the subject.

“A few years ago it wasn’t there at all,” said Matilija Principal Jim Berube. But newer schoolbooks are more geography oriented, he said.

Fallon said geography has recently “made the list of core subjects, along with English, history, science and math, endorsed by the nation’s governors and the President in their educational goals for the year 2000.”

“That’s music to our ears,” Fallon said.

Sample Geography Bee Questions

1. The present-day country of Iran was formerly known by what name?2. The headwaters of the Mississippi are in what state?

3. Italy’s primary agricultural region is in the valley of what river?4. In 1979, the world was declared free of what infectious disease that previously had killed millions of people?

5. Caribou are to the tundra as zebra are to the ?

Answers

1. Persia. 2. Minnesota. 3. Po River. 4. Smallpox. 5. Savanna or tropical grassland.