|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A sixth-grader from Danville’s Diablo Vista Middle School recently advanced to the National Geographic Bee finals, taking seventh at the event held in Washington, D.C. last month.
After demonstrating geographic prowess at the school and state level, Ahilan Eraniyan represented the California at the national competition, making it to the final 10, which was televised. The top three finalists in the championship round were awarded college scholarships worth a cumulative total of $85,000.
This year, nearly 3 million fourth- through eighth-graders from across the United States competed at the school level, and then, after undergoing an online qualifying test, winners of the school competition convened for the state competition.
California’s competition was held at Fresno State, with 100 students present.
Eraniyan said he has always had a moderate interest in social studies. “It’s nice to learn about different people in different places around the world as a global citizen,” he said during an interview this week.
The Diablo Vista student was honored at Tuesday’s San Ramon Valley school board meeting, presented with a certificate of recognition by the board members.
Studying involved reading books and atlases, he said — activities he enjoyed anyways.
“He’s pretty independent, and he pretty much works by himself,” said his father, Eraniyan Guna. Studying was “not anything that we needed to incentivize at any point in time,” his father added.
Throughout the rounds, questions were all over the map, from mountains to lakes to tiny islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The winning one was “What large mountain system that stretches more than 1200 miles separates the Taklamakan Desert from the Tibetan Plateu?” — the correct answer of the “Kunlun Mountains” given by 14-year-old Pranay Varada.
One of the craziest questions he was asked, recalled Eraniyan, was about “capes going into some bay on the east coast.”
The ultimate rounds in D.C. took place over the course of several days, with the final championship on May 17. First, the 54 finalists — a representative from each U.S. state and territory — took part in preliminaries that weeded the group down to the final 10 competitors, who participated in a final, oral geographic bee that was televised on CBS.
Being on television was a bit weird, Eraniyan said. “The lights were literally blasting into my face,” he said, “so it was hard to see the moderator guy.”
“I can only imagine how much pressure would be going through the kids’ minds when they’re sitting in front of those cameras up there,” said his father, Guna.
Eraniyan hasn’t given much thought to next year’s competition. Or to what he wants to be when he grows up. But for right now, he thinks that secretary of state might be a good, geography-related option.
Congratulations Ahilan! You have worked so hard and made SRVUSD very proud.