University Hosts 30th Annual State Geography Bee

The 30th annual Mississippi State Geographic Bee, a preliminary to the National Geographic Society’s competition, is scheduled for Friday (April 6) at the University of Mississippi.
The event begins with registration at 8 a.m. in the Jackson Avenue Center. Following a welcome, preliminary rounds start after 9 a.m. The final rounds begin at 11, with the awards ceremony immediately following.
“Bee students, families and educators in Mississippi will take part in an expanded full day of programs and activities called National Geographic Day,” said Dawn Bullion, state bee coordinator and program coordinator of the UM Mississippi Geographic Alliance, which supports the event. “Festivities will include the Geographic Bee, National Geographic educator certification, Explorer Classroom programs, giant map explorations, Virtual Reality Geography, Edible Geography, GPS activities and an ARC/GIS mapping activity.
“Families and educators of the participants are encouraged to come and explore the many geography activities during the day.”
The National Geographic Bee is an annual competition organized by the National Geographic Society, designed to inspire and reward students’ curiosity about the world. Students in grades four through eight from 10,000 schools across the United States will compete in the event for a chance to win college scholarships and the glory of being the National Geographic Bee Champion.
This is the first time the Mississippi State Geography Bee has been held at Ole Miss. Organizers shared the format for the competition.
“It is an oral competition with each student receiving questions in the practice round and eight preliminary rounds,” said Carly Lovorn, regional director of educator networks with the National Geographic Society. “The students with the top 10 scores from the preliminary rounds will advance to the final competition. There may be a need for a tiebreaker to determine the top 10 scorers.”
The final competition includes a final round and a championship round.
“The final round is mostly oral,” Bullion said. “Two questions require all students to write their answers. The final round determines the two finalists who will then compete in the championship round. The two finalists start the championship round with a clean slate.”
Video cameras, recording devices of any kind and computers are not allowed at the preliminary competition, preliminary tiebreaker or the final competition. Anyone identified with such a device will be escorted from the competition.
For more information about the Mississippi Geography Bee, visit https://sites.google.com/site/mississippistatebee/home. For more about the Mississippi State Geography Alliance at UM, go to https://mga.olemiss.edu/. For more about the National Geographic Society Geography Bee, visit https://www.nationalgeographic.org/bee.

By Edwin B. Smith
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