Friday, March 24, 2017

Windham Middle School student competes in state Geography Bee for a second year by Lorraine Glowczak


Matthew (Matt) Fox, a seventh-grade student at Windham Middle School, will compete in the State of Maine Geography Bee for a second year in a row. The competition will take place on Friday, March 31st at the University of Maine at Farmington.
 
Fox reached his competition status by taking the school wide written test first. He was one of the top ten who had the highest score. He and the others competed in an oral competition with Fox placing first at the school. 

 It was a close competition between Fox, and runner up Kamden St. Pierre, who were both stumped by two challenging geography questions. The question Fox answered correctly and won him his first place title was, “The endangered snow leopard is being protected in the Annapurna Conservation Area, which includes the Annapurna Massif in which Asian country?”

Fox responded with the accurate answer of Nepal. 

Fox, winning the school Geography Bee for a second year, shares possible reasons for his success. “I have always liked looking at maps,” Fox began. “In my room, I have a map of the world as well as a globe and I think it’s cool to see where places are.” 

Fox also acknowledges that he does get a little help from his father, who is a social studies teacher.
When asked if he had any advice for others who may want to compete in future Geography Bees, he had one recommendation. “If you hear of a country or a place you haven’t heard of before, look it up on a map. And then read as much as you can about it.”

Fox, who enjoys playing basketball and participating in track, stated that Language Arts and Social Studies are his favorite subjects. 

Fox lives in Windham with  his dad, mom, nine year old sister, a dog named Rosie; two cats: Buddy and Joe and two guinea pigs: Poppy and Ginger.

As for one of the questions that stumped the competitors?  “Archaeologists have begun excavating an ancient lost city in the region called La Mosquitia in which country north of Nicaragua?” 

In case you didn’t know the answer, either. It is Honduras.


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