Tenney Grammar School, Methuen- March 27th

42° 43' 55" N
71° 10' 40" W 
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The EarthView team is pleased to be back at Tenney Grammar School In Methuen for the third year in a row! 



If you have seen our team in previous years while visiting Tenney Grammar, we might look a little different. Today just so happens to be the Massachusetts Round of the National Geographic Geography Bee.  Our very own Dr. Domingo is a judge and Ms. Rosalie, aka. the Globe Lady, is the moderator at today's event! 

As you may or may not know, the National Geographic Geography Bee is a competition that is open to all schools that  teach students in grades 4-8. Each school holds its own Geography Bee competition and typically there is a winner from each grade level. The winners of each grade level then compete against each other to determine the winner of the school. The winning student then has to take a 1 hour written test about Geography. If he or she scores high enough on the test, he/she is eligible to compete at the state level. Only the top 100 students in each state are allowed to compete at the state level. 

               

Today's event takes place at Worcester Academy in Worcester, Ma. Worcester Academy is a co-ed boarding school for students in grades 6-12 and postgraduates. The school is very much into the concept of Sustainability (which we had talked about in a previous blog post) and is involved in other Geography related activities, such as being the host of today's event.

The winner of the Massachusetts Geography Bee today will head to Washington, D.C. to compete against the other state level winners in the National Geography Bee that will take place May 11th-13th.

Good luck to all of the competitors in today's competition! Maybe even Tenney Grammar's own representative student will make it to the National competition, we will have to wait and see! Let's hope that the winner of the National Bee comes from Massachusetts just like in 2013 when Sathwick Karnik from Plainville won. Another interesting thing to note is that Earthview Wrangler, Eva Ratcliffe participated in her middle school's Geography Bee back in the 2006-2007 school year when she was a 6th grader. She placed first for her 6th grade team but did not win when competing against the other winning team members. Little did she know that she would later become a Geography Major at Bridgewater State University and be here working for EarthView!  

The National Geographic Geography Bee is a wonderful event and competition where the students always amazing us with their deep knowledge of geography. We here at Earthview hope that today's competition opens the minds of our young students to become more actively involved in Geography as it is everywhere. 

UPDATE: The 2015 Massachusetts Geography Bee winner is Lucy Chae, a 7th grader from Charles E. Brown School in Newton. This is the first time in its 27 year Geography Bee participation that Massachusetts has had a female student win the right to represent Massachusetts at the National Geography Bee in Washington DC May 11th -13th. Congratulations to Lucy and to all the many students across the state who participated in the Geography Bee.
Runners up were; Michael Izdal of Wilson Middle School in Natick and Markus Elbert of Oak Hill Middle School  in Newton.

If you would like to learn more about the event you can watch the local news clip here or you can read the article posted in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette here. 

Smith Elementary, Danvers -- January 27

N 42 ° 35' 10"

W 70 ° 57' 14"

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The EarthView team is pleased to be making another North Shore visit, this time to the Ivan G. Smith School in Danvers. We are even more pleased to find that the Smith School has a newsletter with a perfect name: The Globe.


This is an interesting community in terms of its land and water connections to the entire region. Bordered on almost all sides by waterways, Danvers is criss-crossed by major, historic highways, including Route 1, Route 128, and Interstate 95. 

Our visit comes on January 27, the 124th birthday of the National Geographic Society. The entire EarthView team is looking forward to the Massachusetts portion of the National Geographic Geography Bee this March 30 in Worcester.


Many do not realize that the first president of National Geographic was none other than Alexander Graham Bell -- some of the EarthView team members have visited his personal office in the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington. The second president was his son-in-law, and every president since then has been a descendant.

Danvers was part of Salem during the 1692 Witch Hysteria, and the home of victim Rebecca Nurse still stands in the town. The wife and daughter of EarthView team member Dr. Hayes-Bohanan are among her direct descendants (and distant cousins of at least one Smith School student).

Danvers has something in common with far-away Weslaco, Texas: both originated a specific variety of onion. In the case of Danvers, the onion is named for the town, and vice-versa (Danvers Onion and Onion Town, repsectively). In the case of Weslaco, the onion is named for the road along which it was developed, FM 1015 (Farm-to-Market Road 1015). It is simply called a 1015 onion.

Post-event update: The EarthView team often learns as much as we teach, and the Smith School visit was no exception. The Danvers Onion, it turns out, is among the most commonly sold yellow bulb onions, and Danvers once supplied most of the onions in the surrounding region. Onion Town is also known for the Danvers Carrot, a short variety bred especially for the clay-rich soils found in Danvers. These carrots are known as "half long" and are among the most popular baby-food carrots.

The clay soil deposits that make short carrots easier to grow than long ones are also good for an industry that Danvers historically shared with Bridgewater. In both towns, the glaciers left clay behind that was good for making bricks.

As we left Danvers, we noticed a fine example of what geographers call "sense of place." The owners of this restaurant have a geographic sense of humor: its function room is named for the famous onion of a town in Georgia.

Massachusetts Geography Bee -- Worcester Academy, April 4

42° 15' 07" N
71° 47' 28" W 
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EarthView will be resting this Friday, as some members of the team help to officiate the National Geography Bee. For the second year in a row, the Massachusetts portion of the event is proudly hosted by Worcester Academy. It is fitting that the event has returned to the Academy, one of whose graduates was an early president of the National Geographic Society and the first editor of its magazine.



The Bridgewater State University Department of Geography is supporting the event with a couple of maps. Dr. Boellstorff printed out a beautiful map of the state that will be on stage, with an opportunity for each participant to "pin" their hometown. Meanwhile, BSU student Jason Covert prepared the map below, based on registrations for the bee.

As Bay State participants are all aware, last reigning National Geography Bee champion is Sathwick Karnik of Plainville, Massachusetts. He and his family have been with EarthView several times during his victory year! Just as Sathwick met Alex Trebek at the final round last year, today's winner will meet Soledad O'Brien when she debuts as host this May.

Sharon Middle School -- May 24

42° 06' 24" N
71° 09' 58" W 
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This is EarthView's second visit to Sharon Middle School. (We were originally scheduled for the Ides of March, but were snowed out.) The blog post for our April 2012 visit describes the town of Sharon in terms of both site and situation -- geographic characteristics of the place itself and of the place in relation to other places. 

Today the EarthView team celebrates Sathwik Karnik's victory in the Natiional Geography Bee. The Karnik family of Plainville, Massachusetts is well known to us, as both Sathwik and his brother have been state bee champions and national finalists.

His winning answer was Chimbarazo, the world's tallest mountain, when measured from the center of the earth.

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Today is also a good day to talk about MOVEMENT, which is one of the Five Themes of Geography. This theme refers to the movements of people, products or ideas that connect PLACES.

May 24 is the anniversary of at least three important events that made future connections possible, and last night a bridge collapse led to a temporary but important loss of connection.

In 1844, the "Victorian Internet" began, as Samuel Morse sent the first telegraph message from Washington to Baltimore. The map below shows another kind of connection between the two, along the Interstate Highway System.


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During the EarthView presentation, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan mentioned the unusual relationship between the telegraph and the Brazilian city of Porto Velho. The connection is explained in the 1999 article Post-Frontier Towns of Rondonia, Brazil, with much more information about the region at Rondonia Web.

On this date in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge connected the two largest boroughs of New York City -- Manhattan and Brooklyn. John Roebling had constructed a similar bridge connecting Covington, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1866, but it is not quite as famous.


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In 1976, supersonic commercial air service connected both London and Paris to Washington, DC, as a Concorde SST was sent from each city to Dulles Airport in nearby Virginia. (The mother and aunt of EarthView team member Dr. Hayes-Bohanan were both there, but he had to go to school that day!) The map below from Geography of Transportation at Hofstra University shows all of the Concorde routes, since retired.

Finally, as mentioned above an important loss of connection occurred last night, when the Skagit River bridge over Interstate 5 collapsed. At least one small truck fell into the river, but nobody was severely injured. The bridge has been described as a major connection between the city of Seattle and the country of Canada. Google Maps already shows that segment as missing, so that navigation systems relying on Google Maps will not send drivers that way. Explore the map to see how difficult the rerouting of people and cargo will be while the bridge is being repaired.

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