During Spring Break, three students from the Plymouth State College Geography Club traveled to Los Angeles, Calif. to participate in the World Geography Bowl. The competition was held during the annual conference of the Association of American Geographers.
Seniors Adam Kurowski and Heather Schulze and junior Craig Tufts made the trek from snowy Plymouth to sunny L.A. to participate in the event. At the conference, they were joined by the New England and St. Lawrence Valley (NESTVAL) Team Coordinator, Dr. Kurt Schroeder, from PSC’s Social Science Dept., along with two additional team members from Keene State College: junior Jason Simard and junior Andrew Sylvia.
The students were selected to participate after their performances at October’s College Bowl held at the NESTVAL annual meeting at Bridgewater State College in New Bedford, Mass. Keene won that competition with Plymouth placing second. The top five individual participants were then invited to represent the NESTVAL region in the national competition in the spring.
The competition consisted of eight consecutive rounds of questions, each team playing every other team. Each round had six toss-up questions followed by two team questions.
Divisions which participated in all eight rounds of the competition were: NESTVAL (which includes Maine, N.H., Vt., Mass., Conn., and R.I.), Middle States (N.J., N.Y., Pa., Del.), MAD (Middle Atlantic Div.: Md., northern Va., D.C.), SEDAAG (Southeastern Div. of the Assoc. of American Geographers: Ala., Fla., Ga., Ky., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.V., Puerto Rico), East Lakes (southern Mich., Ohio), West Lakes (Minn., Wis., northern Mich., Iowa, Mo., Ill., Ind.), Great Plains/Rocky Mountains (N.D., S.D., Neb., Kan., Mont., Wyo., Colo., Utah), and the Pacific Coast (Wash., Ore., Idaho, Nev., Ariz., Calif., Alaska, and Hawaii). The only division not in attendance was the Southwest Div. (N.M., Texas, Okla., Ark., La.).
At the end of the long night, the Pacific Coast placed fourth, the Great Plains/Rocky Mountains placed third, with the SEDAAG and Middle States Divisions meeting in the final round. The Middle States Division won in the end. NESTVAL finished in fifth place overall. “I think a fifth-place overall finish was quite an achievement, especially when you consider our competition consisted of mainly older graduate students and much larger schools and regions,” said Tufts.
“Considering that the NESTVAL team, which was composed entirely of undergraduates, was competing against teams which were composed almost entirely of graduate students, I think that we did rather well… Most importantly, we all had fun,” commented Dr. Schroeder. “Geography Bowl is meant to be entertaining, and is meant to introduce students to a major geography conference and what that conference can mean for their professional development.”
Next year’s national competition will take place in New Orleans. “New Orleans should be a great place for a conference,” Schroeder anticipates, “especially since [it] overlaps with Mardi Gras.”