SPRING LAKE HEIGHTS — Fourteen students from seven area schools were put to the ultimate test at the Spring Lake Heights Elementary School’s Annual Geography Bee that was held on Friday, Feb. 10.
This year’s event was the seventh annual geography bee to be hosted by Heights, and featured the top two students from Avon, Belmar, Brielle, Heights, H.W Mountz, Manasquan and Sea Girt.
To compete in Friday’s event, students first had to win their school’s geography bee, which was put on by the social studies teachers from each school sometime in December or January.
When it was announced in July of 2021 that the National Geography Bee- which was hosted by National Geographic- was permanently canceled, a collection of social studies teachers in the area knew that they had to keep their local level competition alive.
“With the National Tournament canceled, our Tournament of Champions became even more important, as it gave the top students something to strive for beyond their school,” said Kevin Preston, a social studies teacher at Heights who ran this year’s event.
For the first 45 minutes of the competition, each of the fourteen students were asked a series of demanding questions pertaining to world geography. Then after a brief break, the top six students who got the most answers right competed for the championship.
“They were throwing out capital city names for small countries across the world, naming mountain ranges that border little known regions, and identifying world heritage sites with pinpoint accuracy,” Mr. Preston said. “The hard work that these students put in to prepare was on full display at this year’s Tournament of Champions.”
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