After rounds of challenges in clusters, Newtown Middle School students competed in the school's final round of the National Geographic Bee on Wednesday, January 11.

NMS teachers Barry Palmer, Shari Oliver, Andrew San Angelo, and Susan Lang helped run the event, which was held after school. Friends, family members, and teachers all watched while the students competed on the stage of the auditorium. Principal Thomas Einhorn acted as moderator for the event by reading questions and describing the different rules for each round.

The National Geographic Bee takes place in participating schools across the country. Each school's winning student goes on to complete a test to determine whether they will compete at the state level of the bee. Students who qualify at the state level, progress to the national level of the competition.

"Today we will determine our school champion," Mr San Angelo announced at the start of the event.

The different rounds of the competition required students to answer different types of questions; some needed oral answers and for others, students wrote down their responses.

Students who competed in the program were Olivia Nikolis, Walker Previdi, Jacob Schumer, Kyle Luo, Noah DiNallo, Tanner Trede, Evan Wei, Michael Sereday, and Devin Herbstman.

After multiple rounds, all of the students were eliminated from the competition except Devin and Michael.

"Congratulations to our two finalists," Mr Einhorn said. "Now you will be competing in a championship round."

After the round, Michael was named the school's National Geographic Bee champion.

Reed Intermediate School is scheduled to hold its National Geographic Bee later in January.