Two student have been selected as Illinois semifinalists in The National Geographic Society’s GeoBee competition.
GeoBee was developed in 1988 to promote geographic knowledge among young people in the United States.
Owen Eaheart, a seventh grader at James Hart School in Homewood, and Jack Piros, a student at Parker Junior High, will be competing in the state competition March 27. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition will be conducted online rather than face-to-face this year, according to the National Geographic Society.
This is the second level of the GeoBee competition. Both schools held their own tournaments, and Owen and Jack took an online qualifying test to move up to the state level. The students have a chance to win case prizes.
The GeoBee tests students’ knowledge on countries and the geographic makeup of an area. The competition included questions such as:
- A savanna elephant’s daily amount of dung contains more than 3,000 seeds. Savanna elephants can be found in Namibia and Mozambique on what continent?
- The ancient Babylonians of Mesopotamia developed an early example of what basic counting machine that is still in use today — abacus or sundial?
- The Matterhorn is an iconic peak in the Alps on the border between Switzerland and what other country?
The answers are Africa, abacus and Italy.