By Laurie Borst

During the month of January, Newtown students from kindergarteners to middle schoolers have focused on geography. Wesley kindergarteners, Reed sixth graders, and NMS seventh and eighth graders have been studying the world.

At Wesley Learning Center, teachers Randi Rote and Evelyn Sanford presented a unit on Gingerbread Geography. The lesson started with each student coloring and cutting out a gingerbread man, which was then sent to friends and relatives of the student.

Recipients were asked to send a postcard back to the child. Back at Wesley, the children put stickers on US and world maps to show where cards have come from. So far, students have received postcards from six continents, receiving four from Australia.

The first postcard received came from Virginia, where Matthew Jaeger had sent a gingerbread man.

Griffin Estes sent one to his uncle in Rome. A postcard of the Coliseum came back, explaining that the ancient arena is the home to many, many cats.

A card was received from the North Pole and Santa wrote, “The bears thought it was a real cookie and ate it.”

One card came from Switzerland. The children laughed as Hallie Audet explained that the sticker that was placed on the map completely covered the country.

Mrs Rote sent a gingerbread man to a business associate of her husband’s in China. The associate created a postcard with the gingerbread man in the picture and sent it back. Several others were quite creative with their replies to the children.

National Geographic

Geography Bee

Reed and NMS students having been preparing for the 19th Annual National Geographic Geography Bee. Both schools held competitions in each cluster. Cluster champions came together on Friday, January 5, for a showdown to crown a school champion. Reed’s competition was held in the morning, NMS’s in the afternoon.

Reed began with a preliminary round of questions. Reed’s sixth grade has 11 clusters, each of which determined a champion. The geography bee only allows ten semifinalists, so the 11 cluster champs faced off to eliminate one of them. Ben Galassi fell in the preliminary round.

The ten students who competed at Reed were Daniel Ansari, John-Paul Blanco, Danielle Chaloux, Darren Kirby, Amanda LoCascio, Karan Marwah, Aidan Pelisson, Gavin Scallon, Jonathan Vaughn, and Mary Vodola. Reed Principal Donna Denniston read the questions. Sixth grade teacher Maura Drabik coordinated the Reed event.

The ten qualifiers got to the semifinal round by knowing such trivia as the Gadsen Purchase included the present-day state of New Mexico, Pascagoula lies on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, and Minsk is the capital and largest city in Belarus. Questions are the same at all grade levels, fourth through eighth.

Several rounds of questioning whittled the participants down to two: Daniel Ansari and Aidan Pelisson. The final round consisted of three questions. Both of the boys knew that Mount Olympus is the highest point in Greece and that in April 2006, pro-democracy demonstrations in Katmandu led the king to transfer power to the Parliament in Nepal.

Neither student could name Nigeria as the West African country known for its oil reserves. This led to a tie-breaker: Colombia, with low coastal plains along both the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, borders which Central American country? Aidan prevailed, knowing the country is Panama, while Daniel did not.

The middle school competitors were Colin Morris, Katie Canavan, Alex Woloszynski, Max Eckert, Olivia Koziol, Molly Sheluck, Robert Andreotta, Matt Jensen, Meredith Bridges and Eric Sippin. Evan Pitkoff, Newtown Schools superintendent, was the moderator. Social studies teachers Will Ryan and Andrew SanAngelo coordinated the event.

The middle school participants were quickly pared down to two. Mr SanAngelo pointed out that while geography is taught in sixth grade, it is not as strong a component of the middle school curriculum. Matt Jensen edged out fellow finalist Colin Morris by knowing the answers to two questions, while Colin answered only one correctly.

Matt and Aidan are both eligible for the written test that will be given to the Connecticut schools champions. Up to 100 of the top scorers will be able to compete in the state competition on March 30.

The National Geographic Society will provide an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the state champions and teacher-escorts to participate in the National Geographic Bee national championship on May 22 and 23. The first-place winner will receive a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership in the society.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek will moderate the national finals on May 23. The program will air on television. Check local listings for dates and times.

Anyone can brush up on geography with GeoBee Challenge, an online geography quiz at nationalgeographic.com/geobee, which poses five new questions a day from previous geography fun for the whole family. The board game won the prestigious Parents’ Choice Award.

The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. The 118-year-old society reflects the world through magazines, television programs, films, radio, books, videos, maps, interactive media, and merchandise.

National Geographic magazine, the official journal of the society, is read by about 40 million people each month in every country of the world. The National Geographic Channel reaches nearly 300 million households in 27 languages in 164 countries.

National Geographic has funded more than 8,000 scientific research projects and supports an education program combating geographic illiteracy.