Before Thanksgiving, Marshall Middle school started the National Geographic Geography Bee competition with a written test given to all 1,400+ students at the school. Seven of Troop 301’s scouts scored in the top 30! The top 30 qualified for the semi-finals, which were held today in the school auditorium. The Scouts that qualified were: Kyle F, Anderw I, Jonathan P, Ryan M, Shane S, Jake T, Jacob Z.
The semi-finals consisted of seven rounds of questions. The rounds each had a theme, US Geography, continents, parks / monuments, rivers / oceans, etc. Each round seemed to get a bit harder, going from some basic multiple choice to some pretty difficult questions at the end.
It was fun to see each participant go up to the microphone and do their best to answer their question. In each round you could see there were some questions that were easy for the students to answer. But, there were some hard to answer questions and it was clear from the student’s reaction they might just be guessing. Sometimes they guessed wrong, but there were a few that expressed big sighs of relief when they guessed but still got it right.
Mrs. T. was there and developed a score card to keep track of the scores for the Scout parents in the audience. It was bit nerve racking to see who was going to make the cut and who might not. The regular part of the competion ended in a tie with 6 students missing only one question, but only 5 more spots available, an elimination round ensued, but in the end Jonathan, Shane, Jake and Jacob made the cut of the final 10!
Tomorrow theses scouts will compete in the finals and who ever wins will go on to the City competition and maybe beyond to State or National to be held in Washington DC later this year.
Regardless of tomorrows outcome, please extend your congratulations to all the scouts that have represented their school and troop so well.
Apologies to Andrew, for not recognizing him in the original posting.