Posted 4/18/01
NB student participates in State Geography Bee
By Danielle Strenke
North Branch Middle School eighth grader Nick Sausen recently participated in the 2001 State Geography Bee, held at Macalester College in St. Paul.
The Geography Bee took place Friday, April 6 at the Olin-Rice Science Center on campus, with the final round held at Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel.
Sausen was among 100 fourth through eighth grade students from across the state who qualified for the state competition.
He said the participants were divided into five groups of twenty, and were then quizzed with a variety of geography questions.
Out of eight questions, Nick answered five correctly. In his group, he was in the last half of the participants, although he is not sure where he finished overall. ìProbably in the top half, but Iím not sure,î Nick said.
One of the questions he answered correctly was a multiple choice question, asking which country has the larger Christian population ñ Brazil or France. Nick correctly answered Brazil.
In the next round, the participants who had answered all the questions correctly were given a written test to complete. The top ten scores then determined the ten students for the final round.
Nick said the bee was a fun experience, although it was not new to him. He also made it to the state competition as a sixth grader two years ago.
He qualified for the trip to state by winning North Branch Middle Schoolís bee back in December.
Nick said he prepares for the bees by looking at maps, and searching the Internet for geography sites, and answering geography trivia.
Nick is the son of Joe and Geri Sausen of North Branch.
The Geography Bee began in 1989, founded by the National Geographic Society. The state bees are the second level in the National Geographic Bee, which began last December with contests in nearly 18,000 schools across the county.
As many as 100 students in each state, who won their school bees and then earned a top score on a written exam prepared by the Society, competed on April 6.
Each state winner received $100 and other prizes, along with an all-expenses paid trip to Washington with a teacher escort for the May 22-23 Geography Bee finals.