The National Geographic Bee

What a wonderful concept! It follows the same format of the widely renown National Spelling Bee, in which kids have to correctly guess the spelling of a word, but in this competition the participants have to guess the right geographical location of a city, river, mountain or whatever other geographical landmark.

It's incredibly important to have a basic knowledge of geography, especially in this wired world where things happening thousands of miles away can have a real and profound impact where we live (take the Middle East cauldron of simmering troubles).

And if you doubt American kids could benefit from some lessons in geography, check this out from this New York Times article:

Yet Americans continue to be relatively clueless about geography. A survey released this month by National Geographic showed that 60 percent of college-age Americans couldn't find Iraq on a map, while half couldn't find New York State.

Incredible? Hardly. That's why competitions like this are extremely important.

Another good reason:

Whereas students who ready themselves for the spelling bee typically begin with the bee's word list, geography bee contestants have no such handy resource. Instead, they must be more creative and resourceful, relying on a combination of atlases, almanacs and publications. They also usually become voracious newspaper readers; my son often began his mornings boning up on international news in the daily paper.

The geography bee's questions, too, require a different level of thinking. The spelling bee contestants rely on memorization or knowledge of etymology. The geography bee asks competitors to connect many more dots through a broad understanding of political, cultural and environmental factors.

And a final thought:

Geography, on the other hand, asks more. But it offers more in return: to know the world is to know how to make it a better place, from a path to peace in war-torn regions to a promise to conserve our planet's natural resources.