By Florida Catholic staff - Florida Catholic
HOLLYWOOD | Kai Cooper, an eighth-grader at Nativity School, knows where the North Platte and South Platte Rivers meet and which U.S. state straddles the Tropic of Cancer.
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
Kai Cooper, an eighth-grader at Nativity School in Hollywood, will compete at the 2018 Florida National Geographic State Bee April 6 for a chance to represent the state at the National Bee in Washington, D.C. starting May 24.
And because he did so well in the nationwide exam that tests that knowledge, he will be one of the semifinalists at the 2018 Florida National Geographic State Bee, to be held at Jacksonville University April 6. He is among the 100 top-scoring students in Florida.
Kai reached the second second level of the National Geographic Bee competition, which is open to fourth- through eighth-grade students, by winning his School Bee and taking the qualifying test, which was then submitted to the National Geographic Society.
The Society invited up to 100 of the top-scoring students in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense Dependents Schools and U.S. territories to compete in the State Bees. (The answers to the questions above, by the way: Nebraska and Hawaii.)
To celebrate the 30th annual National Geographic Bee, the cash prize for the top three students in each state has doubled. Each state champion will receive $200, the "National Geographic Visual Atlas of the World, 2nd Edition" and a trip to Washington, D.C., to represent their state in the National Geographic Bee Championship, to be held at National Geographic Society headquarters May 20-23. Students who come in second place will receive $150 and those who come in third will receive $100.
The first-place national champion will receive a $50,000 college scholarship, a lifetime membership in the Society, including a subscription to National Geographic magazine, and an all-expenses-paid Lindblad expedition to the Galápagos Islands aboard the new National Geographic Endeavour ll. Second- and third-place finishers will receive $25,000 and $10,000 college scholarships, respectively.
National Geographic will stream the final round of the National Geographic Bee Championship starting May 24, at www.natgeobee.org.
