|
Parker to compete in state bee
BY STEVE SHEPPARD INDEPENDENT WRITER
Adam Parker, a sixth-grade student at the Cyrus Peirce School, and the son of Mary and Matthew Parker, will represent Nantucket at the National Geographic Massachusetts Geographic Bee in Worcester on April 4.
Parker won the Cyrus Peirce segment of the Geographic Bee on Jan. 11, after all students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades took part in seven preliminary classroom rounds leading up to a final round featuring 10 stu- dents. Parker then took a 70-question National Geographic geography test to qualify for the state Bee. The sixth grader was one of the top 100 scorers in the state.
"I am so proud of Adam," said his social studies teacher Karla Butler. "He's an awesome young man who will represent Nantucket well."
Parker is one of only a few Nantucket middle school students who have gone on to the state level since the Nationial Geographic Bee was introduced on island 20 years ago. He is the first sixth grader to do so.
The state winner at Worcester will represent Massachusetts in Washington, D.C. in the national finals to be held at National Geographic Society headquarters on May 20-21.
To give an idea of the level of difficulty of the Bee, here are several sample questions from this year's schoollevel Bees -
1. Known for its production of alpaca wool, Arequipa is a major commercial and tourist center in what country just south of Ecuador?
2. A Mediterranean climate occurs in only one state in the United States. Name this coastal state.
3. Name the major river that flows through Turkey and Syria before joining the Tigris River in Iraq.
4. The region of Alsace-Lorraine has changed hands four times since 1870 between France and what other country, which occupied the area during
most of World War II? I
(Answers: 1: Peru; 2: California; 3: Euphrates River; 4: Germany.)
| 
)