Mapping a victory: 12-year-old wins National Geographic bee

Florida native Rishi Nair, a sixth-grader at Williams Middle Magnet School in Tampa, beat out nine other young geography whizzes to win the National Geographic Bee Championship Wednesday.

The final question: “A new marine sanctuary will protect sharks and other wildlife around Isla Wolf in which archipelago in the Pacific Ocean?”

“Galápagos Islands,” 12-year-old Nair correctly answered.

Standing on the National Geographic Society stage at the end of the competition, he had one word to describe how he felt: “Proud.”

“I studied with whatever free time I got, and I studied country by country,” Nair said in an interview afterwards. “I wanted to win.”

This is Nair's third year in the competition. Along with the championship title, he will take home a $50,000 college scholarship, lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society and an all-expenses-paid trip on the Lindblad Expedition to Southeast Asia. His parents also promised him an iPhone, a trip to Europe and a golden retriever puppy, Nair said.

The second and third runners-up, Saketh Jonnalagadda of Massachusetts and Kapil Nathan of Alabama, won $25,000 and $10,000 in scholarships, respectively.

The bee follows a game-show format. Speed rounds, successive eliminations and contested answers kept geographers and audience members on their toes Wednesday, as moderator Mo Rocca quizzed the contestants, aged 10-14, on maps, borders and culture.

Started in 1989 to address a lack of geographic knowledge among American youth, the competition is an effort to encourage teachers to include geography in their curriculums, spark student interest in the topic and improve public awareness.

“Geography is more than just places on a map,” Gary Knell, president and CEO of the National Geographic Society, said. “It’s really about interconnection of the world, and that’s what the National Geographic Bee is about.”

To qualify, contestants must first win their school-hosted geography bees before taking a qualifying written test. Those with the top 100 scores move to a state-level bee; if they take home that championship, they win $100 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for the national competition.

The 10 students on stage Wednesday represent the winners of that event, which took place Monday. The nine boys and one girl had to beat out nearly 3 million kids from 11,000 schools to win their chance at the grand prize, making this year’s bee the most competitive yet, Knell said.

Contestants included Kapil Nathan of Alabama, Rishi Kumar of Maryland, Lucas Eggers of Minnesota, Grace Rembert of Montana, Samanyu Dixit of North Carolina, Ashwin Sivakumar of Oregon, Pranay Varada of Texas and Thomas Wright of Wisconsin.

The first round of questions was dedicated to U.S. geography; the rest, world geography. Contestants submitted written and spoken answers to earn their right to stay in the running, with lower-scoring students eliminated with each round.

In between rounds, Rocca quizzed the contestants on their personal lives, from hobbies to heroes. Occasionally, the student turned the tables, testing humorist on the names of capitals and other geographic facts.

When asked who his hero was, Nair answered two people: his mom and first-grade teacher.

“My first-grade teacher, Ms. Denise Williams, gave me a book about the Dominican Republic, and I read that and many other country books so my mom started to put me in other geographic competitions,” Nair said. “I’d like to thank my mom for everything she’s done since I was born. She’s a really great lady.”

The 2016 National Geographic Bee will be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel and on Nat Geo WILD at 8 p.m. ET on Friday, May 27.

This story was originally published May 25, 2016 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Mapping a victory: 12-year-old wins National Geographic bee."