Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
tries on a crazy Jerry Lewis voice to do an impression of U.S. geographic ignorance: “'Uh,
France,sure,that'soverhere,by,uh,Brazil...'ItwouldbeniceifAmericansknewwhere
a country was
before
we went to war with them.”
Ina downstairs conference room, one groupofeleven competitors is meeting their mod-
erator, National Geographic digital media VP Rob Covey. “Work stops at National Geo-
graphic every year for the bee,” Mary Lee Elden told me. “People gather around monitors
to watch.” It's a rewarding moment for the society—one of their only chances to see such
an enthusiastic young audience for the maps and magazines and TV shows they spend the
rest of the year casting out into the void.
“Your first instruction is to relax, if that's possible,” Covey says, to uptight parental
laughter. The shorter contestants are shown how to lower the microphone stand—there are
fourthgradersuptoeighthgradershere,andit'satwo-footswinginheightacrossthegreat
gulf of puberty in some cases. Covey warns them in advance that “England” will not be
accepted asanamefortheUnitedKingdom,nor“Holland” fortheNetherlands. Oceania is
officially a region, not a continent. (This was apparently a point of controversy and protest
at a previous bee.) As the eleven boys take their turns at the mike for a practice round, I
slip into a folding chair on the room's center aisle. Brian McClendon, who is representing
NationalGeographic'snewpartnerGoogleatthebee,sitsdownnexttome.He'stheVPof
engineering for Google's Maps and Earth products, which makes him, among this crowd,
something of a sex symbol. There were gasps and whispers of “Yeah!” among the kids in
the crowd when he was introduced.
“Okay if I sit here?”
“Sure. This is clearly the fifty-yard line of geography bee seating.”
“The Prime Meridian,” he corrects me.
“Whichcountrybordersmorelandlockedcountries—AlgeriaorDemocraticRepublicof
the Congo?” Rob Covey is asking the first contestant, Robert Chu of Connecticut. He has
fifteen seconds to answer.
“Democratic Republic of the Congo,” he replies instantly, with utter confidence. He's
correct. My eyebrows shoot up a couple inches. In a heartbeat, he's managed to visualize
the borders of two different African nations,
as well as the borders of all their neighbors,
and calculate the answer. The Democratic Republic of Congo beats Algeria by three coun-
tries.
The geography bee may have originated as a result of all the face-palm-stupid answers
thatAmericanstudentsweregivingongeographysurveys,butthequestionsinthenational
bee are far from stupid—they are very, very hard. And fourth graders are acing them. Zim-
babwean national parks, Dominican volcanoes, Italian car production statistics, Swazi life
expectancy—nothing seems beyond their grasp. “At first you think, 'Oh, that's cute. I bet
I can do as well as that,'” says Ted Farnsworth, the father of Arizona contestant Nicholas
