The National Geographic Bee (previously called the National Geography Bee) is an annual geography contest sponsored by the National Geographic Society. The bee, held every year since 1989, is open to students in the fourth through eighth grade in participating American schools.
The entities represented at the national level are all fifty U.S. states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, U.S. territories in the Pacific (Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa), the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense Dependents Schools.
The National Geographic Bee Finals is hosted by Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.
The reigning titleholder is Rahul Nagvekar of Texas.
Read more about National Geographic Bee: Champions, 2012 State Champions
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or bee:
“...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the “tough guy;” today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)