The National Geographic Bee Official Study Guide has been created to help kids prepare to compete in the Society's annual geography competition. Featuring maps, photos, graphs, a variety of questions actually used in past Bees, plus an extensive resource section, the guide not only reviews geographic facts but also helps readers recognize themes, identify relationships, and understand how geographers think. In this updated edition all statistics have been revised to reflect the most up-to-date figures. New question rounds have been added, as well as new tips from Bee winners on how to study. Resources have been reviewed to ensure the most current offerings.
I became a geographer reading National Geographic in my Grandmother’s attic. The musty old magazines, summers in Yosemite with an uncle, and reading the Travels of Marco Polo fixed an early and enduring interest in far away lands, especially mountains. Ten summers as a park ranger in Yosemite and Alaska and travels to every continent raised the flat map to life.
My goal as a geography professor is to help students enlarge and diversify their mental map of the world—to fill in the blank spaces with the social, economic, and environmental characteristics that order our world. During the last decade, the hurried pace of our global society—the rising dependence of nations upon each other for trade and security—makes geographical studies more important today than ever.
Along the way students must learn college level research, writing, presentation, and technology skills. A foreign language and another technical skill such as cartography/GIS, statistics, or graphic arts is also very important. Finally, a mix of summer employment and internships completes preparation for life beyond Arcata.
Recent travels include Myanmar, Alaska/Yukon, and Vietnam. Current projects include a grade-school social studies textbook series and another volume on environmental challenges in the Sierra Nevada. I also direct the California Geographic Alliance, a group dedicated to improving K-12 geography education in a state that will soon count 40 million people.
My fifth grade grandson won his school GeoBee and I'm beginning a library for him so he can study. You have to love maps and places and people to keep up your interest. You can be in the GeoBee through the eight grade and if you keep your interest up you can learn alot about the world. This is one of the first books I gave him and, of course, I had to read it myself. The study tips are great and emphasize lifelong learning and absorbing what you read. Thanks to Sara, my daughter, for keeping this love of reading and learning alive from generation to generation!
I love geography, too, and this taught me alot of basics I didn't know and inspired me to make this a year of reading to refresh my own love of learning about the world.
We have this book and the kids love it. Although we do not participate in the official "Geography Bee" we do have our own school competition and this book is a hot item for that. Teacher use it frequently to review items, there are many times I walk through the library and students have a copy sitting together quizzing each other on facts. AWESOME BOOK!!!!!