After a more than decade-long absence from the city, the Canadian Geographic Challenge will put on a live national championship in Ottawa at the Canadian Museum of Nature from May 2 to 4.
Thanks to a $100,000 donation from Canadian TV personality Alex Trebek, who has hosted the game show Jeopardy! since 1984, the challenge’s final round is able to return to the nation’s capital for a live tournament.
Trebek is a gold member of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, which runs the challenge in conjunction with its magazine, Canadian Geographic.
The competition moved its national finals online after budget cuts and a lack of financial support in 2002. Subsequently, it also moved its provincial and territorial finals online in 2008 after the global recession.
Organizers are looking forward to the return of a live final.
The challenge, which began in 1995, is for students in Grades 7-10 who have a strong interest in geography. This year, 275 of the 550 participating schools are from Ontario.
“The National Challenge is an opportunity for kids to engage in geography and demonstrate their knowledge. As an organization, we want kids who are passionate about geography to compete and show off what they know,” says Beth Dye, the challenge’s chairperson and society board member.
The 20 students with the highest scores at the provincial and territorial level find out if they will advance to the finals on April 1. Finalists get an all-expenses-paid weekend trip to Ottawa, where they compete in two rounds of competition.
“The first round of competition is a written test, and then the second is fieldwork. They will go out somewhere in Ottawa and will have to use their geographic skills, such as map-reading and orienteering, to answer questions and get points,” says Ellen Curtis, the society’s education programs manager.
“We’re really excited about that round in particular, because it’s fairly rare these days to actually have fieldwork involved in geography education. We’re happy to get them out of the classroom and doing some real-world, hands-on geography.”
The last round takes place on May 4 at the Museum of Nature.
It’s a game-show style competition with a series of questions asked to the top five students based on their scores in the first two rounds.
The top three students will win $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000 respectively, although the soceity is still working on adding to the prize pot.
The royal society wants to increase geographic awareness and literacy in students across Canada, and this is the longest-running program dedicated to that pursuit. This is the challenge’s 20th year.
“We want people to realize that geography is not just what you’ve experienced in school or what your parents experienced in school; it really is an active and vibrant subject that affects so many different aspects of our lives,” says Curtis. “We want people to learn about our geography and inform themselves on how amazing their country is.”