For the City Times

Ben Franklin Junior High School 7th Grader Evan Pfeffer has been named by the National Geographic Society a semifinalist in the state’s geographic bee.

The 2017 Wisconsin National Geographic State Bee will be held in Madison on Friday, March 31.

This is the second level of the National Geographic Bee competition, which is now in its 29th year. School Bees were held in schools with fourth- through eighth-grade students throughout the state to determine each school champion.

School champions then took a qualifying test, which they submitted to the National Geographic Society. The National Geographic Society has invited up to 100 of the top-scoring students in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense Dependents Schools and U.S. territories to compete in the State Bees.

This year marks the eighth year the competition has been held at Ben Franklin Junior High. Social studies teacher Jody Kolodziej, who also organized the bee, said Pfeffer is the second Ben Franklin student to qualify for the state competition in the school’s history.

Eighth grade student Cassie Schultz competed in the Madison Bee in 2016.

Each state champion will receive $100, the National Geographic Concise Atlas of the World, 4th Edition and a trip to Washington, D.C. to represent their state in the National Geographic Bee Championship to be held at National Geographic Society headquarters, May 14-17, 2017.

The national champion will receive a $50,000 college scholarship, a lifetime membership in the Society, including a subscription to National Geographic magazine, and an all expenses paid Lindblad expedition to the Galápagos Islands aboard the new National Geographic Endeavour ll.

Visit www.natgeobee.org for more information on the National Geographic Bee.

How would you fare as a Bee contestant? At the school Bees this year, students had to answer questions like these:

• The North Platte and South Platte Rivers meet in which state—New Mexico or Nebraska?
  Nebraska
• Which landmark in Washington, D.C., was burned by the British in 1814—the Washington Monument or the White House?
  White House
• Sea otters sometimes wrap themselves in kelp when resting to keep from drifting​ ​​away. Sea otters can be found near eastern Russia in the Sea of Okhotsk in which​ ​ocean?
  Pacific Ocean
• The Island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean has multicolored sand dunes. Mauritius lies off the southeast coast of which continent that includes the Kalahari Desert?
  Africa
• What is the term for an underground layer of rock that holds groundwater—an arroyo​ or an aquifer?
  Aquifer