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 Local news and information from Blue Hill, Brooklin, Brooksville, Sedgwick, and Surry, Maine. |
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News Feature
Aponte wins homeschooler geography bee  Brandon Aponte, of Brooklin, winner of the homeschoolers’ geography bee competition held Monday, January 9, at the Blue Hill library.  From left, Ian Brenner-Simpson, Kate Brenner-Simpson, Brandon Aponte, Gabe Allen, Natalie Brennan and Liam Brennan compete in the National Geographic Society Bee for homeschoolers, held at the Blue Hill library on January 9. Aponte won and will compete for a spot in the state competition in April. by Anne Berleant Six area students competed in the third annual homeschoolers geography bee on Monday, January 9. The National Geographic Society sponsors the bee for sixth to eighth graders across the state, with the winner given a written test to qualify for the state-wide bee in the spring. Held at the Blue Hill Public Library and emceed by Pat “I am Alex Trebek” Horton, librarian for youth services, each student answered seven questions in the first round. Points were then added up, with the two lowest-scoring students eliminated from second-round competition. “The first instruction is to relax and enjoy the bee,” Horton told the students, seated in a row behind a long table in the library’s Howard Room Students had 15 seconds to answer questions “designed to test knowledge, not to trick,” Horton said. The early questions centered on physical, cultural and comparative geography of the United States. “Which state is more arid?” Horton asked Natalie Brennan. “Alabama or Utah?” Natalie answered correctly: Utah. For the world geography category, one question read, “Riyadh, a city with four mosques, is located in Iran or Saudi Arabia?” The correct answer, Saudi Arabia, was supplied by Liam Brennan. After seven rounds, a single-elimination tiebreaker was held between Kate Brenner-Simpson and Natalie Brennan. “Ernest Shackleton was a famous explorer of which continent?” Horton asked. The girls wrote down their answers, and with the correct answer, “Antarctica,” Brennan moved on. The remaining students were each to be eliminated after getting two wrong answers until one remained, the bee winner. Quickly, only sixth graders Brandon Aponte and Gabe Allen were left. With a copy of a United States 2000-2010 population-only map before each, they had to identify the one state to experience a population loss. Aponte wrote Michigan, the correct answer, and won the competition for the second year running. He will next take a 100-question multiple-choice test, as will all school winners. The top 100 scorers will compete in the state bee in April, with the winner moving to the national championships in Washington, D.C. The county-wide bee round is not being held this year. Aponte competed at the state levels last year, held at the University of Maine at Farmington. “I was very nervous, but it was a good experience, even without winning,” he said. His performance at the 2012 homeschoolers’ level bodes well—he correctly answered every single question. |
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