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:
“All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Like the bee that now is blown,
Honey-heavy on my hand,
From his toppling tansy-throne
In the green tempestuous land—”
—Edmund Blunden (1896–1974)