Imagine looking at a blank map of Europe and having to tell in 15 seconds the name of a particular country or being asked in which state the coldest temperatures were recorded.
That's what 10 Utah students had to do Friday afternoon at the University of Utah during the 1990 Utah Geography Bee competition finals, sponsored by the National Geographic World Magazine, Amtrak and Kudos snacks.More than 100 fourth-through-eighth-grade students, from the 321 Utah schools that registered, participated for a chance to go to Washington for the national finals May 23 and 24. The top national prize will be a $25,000 college scholarship.
Nervous students were counseled to use "United States" instead of "America," "Netherlands" instead of "Holland" and "United Kingdom" instead of "England." Others were told to avoid using "OPEC" for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"I don't really study geography as much as people think," said state winner James Wingate, 14, Northwest Intermediate School. "Once you learn where everything is you don't have to study as much anymore."
"Geography is my favorite subject. When I was little, my Dad and I used to name all the countries we could think of, and pretty soon it got to this," he said. "I didn't think I was going to make it pass the first round."
Wingate's geography instructor, Rick Olsen, said, "I always knew he was going to win. We started grooming him for the state championship last year, and that's what we went for and that's what we got."
The second-place winner was Mark Edwards of Churchill Junior High, who said he had to guess to answer some questions. Edwards said he studies geography approximately 10 hours a week.
Third place went to the only girl in the group, Christine Pratt, 12, a seventh-grader from Tabiona School in Duchesne.
Pratt said, "I'm not a geography freak. I just love the subject.
"It's fun to get up there and see what you know and what you don't. I never thought I was going to get this far."
The winners, first through third place, won checks for $100, $75 and $50, along with geography T-shirts, books and maps.
The other six finalists were Mark Kittrell, Kaysville; Jason Brinton, Salt Lake City; Talmage Broadbent, Orem; Mark Anderson, Loa; Alex Stuart, Ogden; and Bryan Duncan, Centerville.
"As a country we've been too isolated within ourselves; we think the world revolves around us rather than be part of the world, and now the world is becoming smaller," said Olsen.
Some of the contestants' geographic knowledge dazzled the crowd, which applauded after each question answered correctly.
Competition Judge Merrill K. Ridd, geography professor at the U., said the event generated interest in the subject, which educators believe is no longer very popular.
"Our interest in geography has declined over the last 20 or 30 years. We've really lost a lot of our geographical understanding because so many things have slipped into the curriculum that geography has been pushed aside and now we find that we don't know the world very well," Ridd said.
Judge Glen Fagg, geography teacher at Salt Lake Community College, said "the students did exceptionally well. I'm a geographer and even for me the questions were relatively hard, but these kids answered."
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