Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
in cooking, shopping, and housekeeping, the family car is the last bastion of 1950s gender
roles: men nearly always drive. This isn't true in our car—when we go someplace togeth-
er, Mindy often ends up behind the wheel. Of course, that's only because she'd rather be
the driver than the one stuck with reading the map, so I haven't exactly disproved Liben's
point.
Forherpart,MaryLeeEldenthinkstheaptitudegapissmallenoughthatitcanbeclosed
with outreach. “It's a matter of interest level,” she says. “How can we get more girls inter-
ested?”Shepointstothecampaign,twentyyearsago,toattractwomentomedicine.“Fifty-
one percent of medical school students are now women. The big push was 'Girls, you can
doit.'Well,Ithinkthesamethingforgeography.Wejustneedtotellthegirlstheycanwin
it too.”
Thetenfinalists,nowalldressedinmatchingblueshirtswithaNationalGeographicBee
logo, are seated in two tiers at the left side of the auditorium stage, which has been decor-
atedfortheoccasionwithadramaticallylitmapofthesevencontinentssetagainstagridof
blue translucent squares reminiscent of the
Jeopardy!
set. Out strides Alex Trebek to com-
plete the game-show illusion. “These ten finalists,” says the forty-year quiz veteran, “are
about to dazzle everyone with their knowledge of the Earth and everything on it and in it.”
Besides the $25,000 giant check, this year's champion will also win a cruise—not the fun,
frivolous
Wheel of Fortune
kind of cruise, of course, but a soberly educational filmstrip of
a cruise: a visit to the Galápagos Islands with Alex Trebek himself aboard! But National
Geographic has judged its target demographic correctly: the ten finalists bounce excitedly
in their seats at this announcement.
Afterthefirstround,Alextakesaminutetochatwitheachofthecontestantsinturn.The
mini-interviews on
Jeopardy!
are so cringe-inducing that many viewers TiVo right through
them, but these ten kids are charming and genuine. Alex, a father of two himself, seems
perfectly at ease and much warmer than usual as he chats with them. There are some signs
of nerves—Vansh Jain's little cheeks puffing in and out, Zaroug Jaleel rocking from side
to side—but for the most part, the kids seem remarkably poised, with none of the unpre-
dictable, outsizedpersonalities IrememberfromNationalSpellingBeecoverage.Allseem
to have charmingly old-timey hobbies: stamp collecting, chess, archery, ballroom dancing.
Arjun Kandaswamy of Oregon, the most mature-seeming of the boys, describes his Eagle
Scout project, and Shiva Kangeyan blithely banters with Alex about models of World War
II-era planes.
The second round opens with a National Geographic employee wheeling out a Chinese
mime made up as a terra-cotta warrior, so that Alex can ask a question about China's
Shaanxi Province. Caitlin Snaring had warned me about this.
“At nationals, they bring out objects to distract you! 'This is the tool they use to fork out
people's brains in Fiji!' So you don't pay attention to that.” The visual aids range from an-
