Fall

While You Were Out

Summer had just begun and the Florida Geographic Alliance was hard at work getting ready for another year’s worth of fun projects, intellectual resources, and helping to educate the world about Florida’s geography.

FGA recently created a new Florida Geography Bee Website that can be accessed through the home page. The website pulls together information from various sources about what the National Geographic Bee is, FAQs, a calender of events, and an article on the state/national winner of Florida, Aadith Moorthy.

FGA is busy and full of excitement while getting ready for Geography Awareness Week This year FGA will be handing out lots of fun resources for teachers all over Florida in order to help better educate Florida classrooms.

Letter from Ray Oldakowski

As the new coordinator for the National Geographic State Bee in Florida, my first thought would be to thank Beth Kirk-Kent for her service as coordinator since 1989! We all appreciate her dedication to geography, National Geographic, and the State of Florida. Second, I would like to thank those schoools that have participated in the State Bee over the years, and encourage those schools that have not experienced the fun and excitement of the National Geographic State Bee to join us this year. The state finals will continue to be held in Jacksonville on the the campus of Jacksonville University

Cheers,
Ray

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Florida/National Geography Bee Winner​

​Aadith Moorthy, an eighth grade student at Palm Harbor Middle School, was the 2010 National Geographic Bee Winner. As mentioned in his bio in the 2010 Bee Yearbook, Moorthy’s “particular interest is astronomy, and he’d love to go to outer space. He is a South Indian classical (Carnatic) music concert singer. He enjoyed snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef and seeing the colorful sea life.”

Upon winning the Bee, Moorthy was granted a $25,000 college scholarship and was awarded the honor of being the national champion for the year 2010.

You can view the final moments of the Bee on the National Geographic website.

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Winner of State History Fair

The annual State History Fair competition this year was held at Tallahassee Community College. On May 4th, the winners were announced in a special awards ceremony held at the Tallahassee Antique Automobile Museum. Awards were held for 1st to 3rd place based on grade level and category. The categories allowed in this year’s history fair were paper documentary, performance, exhibit, and website.

To view the winners in each category please visit www.floridahistoryfair.com.

This year’s special prize for the Mapping History Award, now sponsored by the Florida Geographic Alliance, was won by Taryn Johnson. Johnson was awarded a fifty dollar U.S. savings bond for her individual exhibit The Marine Chronometer. Johnson is a senior at East Lake High School in Pinellas County and is the student of Alan Kay. The Florida Geographic Alliance is thrilled to be sponsoring such a special award.

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Geography in the NewsTM!

In 2009, the announcement of Neil Lineback’s, author of Geography in the NewsTM, 1000th weekly edition came out. Communicating with thousands of teachers and students weekly, Lineback believes “Geography in the NewsTM provides a geographic perspective into events and their consequences …spark[ing] debates and discussions in classrooms and homes…”

Geography in the NewsTM can be seen through Maps101 which was created in 1991 as a means of an online database for geography students, Maps101 has become an “innovative, cutting-edge resource.” It provides current geographic analysis and activities, maps, geography-centric materials, as well as videos from “National Geographic, animations, timelines, lesson plans, and activities for the classroom.”

 

Offered for various subjects, Maps101 helps with curriculum for K-12. School’s that subscribe to Maps101 will receive a password enabling the entire school, even the students and their parents, access to all of the packages.