Minster students compete in bee

January 25, 2012

MINSTER — Twelve Minster students put their knowledge of geography to the test during an annual bee held Jan. 17 — but in the end, only one worldly student was left standing.
With family members supporting them in the audience, participants in the geography bee answered a series of questions either orally or by writing on a note card.
“Each of these students is the winner of their individual class of social studies,” said Mike Wiss, seventh and eighth-grade history teacher and proctor for the bee. “There’s three eighth-grade winners, three seventh, three sixth and three fifth who come together for the school bee.”
The geography bee consisted of two rounds — a final round and a championship round. The final round featured questions about the United States, with the answers to each question being one of the 50 states. Questions during the championship round — when there were only two students remaining in the bee — could be pulled from anywhere in the world.
“In every question, there’s something there geographically or historically that can take your mind to a certain spot of the United States, or of the world,” Wiss said as he explained the bee to the audience and contestants beforehand. “And, obviously, as the further we go, the more difficult the questions get, just like we had in class.”
Furthermore, each student was allowed one missed question; after the second miss, they were eliminated from the competition.
For the first question, contestants each answered a different state question orally. For the second question, each contestant interpreted a graph in order to orally answer a question about U.S. population increase. After the second round, two students were eliminated.
The third question required remaining contestants to write down their answer to the following question on a note card: “In August of 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake was felt along the east coast of the United States. This earthquake’s epicenter was located northwest of the city of Richmond in what state? After writing an answer other than “Virginia,” one more student was eliminated.
Five more contestants were eliminated after their fourth question, during which students orally answered more state questions. Students also give oral answers for their fifth question, with two additional competitors exiting the bee.
With only two participants left — fifth-grade student, Aaron Huwer, and seventh-grade student, Nick Chalk — the geography bee entered into the championship round.
For this round, Huwer and Chalk were given the same three international geography questions, and were then asked to write their answers on a note card. Answers to these questions were: Gulf of Mexico, Philippines and Mali.
Nick Chalk was named the winner of the school geography bee, having correctly answered the first two questions in the championship round. He was presented with a medal and a certificate for his accomplishment.
Chalk will soon take a 70 to 75-question multiple choice exam that will be sent on to Washington, D.C., to the National Geographic Society.
In about a month, a post card will be sent back to school indicating whether or not he will advance to the next level of competition.
“We have not had anyone advance past this exam since my first year here — that’s 17 years ago,” Wiss said. “That was Phillip Prenger, the youngest child of Bob and Doris Prenger ... so we wish Nick good luck.”
Although Wiss was unsure exactly how long the geography bee has been held, he said he has records back to 1975.
“We have never made it a big production like the spelling bee or something like that,” he said.
“It has always occurred during the school day. It’s something that gets the kids a little more interested in history and geography.”
The geography bee participants this year included: Fifth-grade students, Aaron Huwer, Jay Prenger and Lilly Pelletier; sixth-grade students, Logan Tebbe, Pilar Slonkosky and Morgan Raible; seventh-grade students, Nathan Schwieterman, Noah Poeppelman and Nick Chalk; eighth-grade students, Jesse Bailey, Ben Butler and Ryan Brown.
Eighth-grade student, Adam Boehnlein, qualified but was unable to participate that day.