Matthew Merchant from Euclid Middle School, Dhruv Sharma from Littleton Academy, Scott Spangler from Goddard Middle School and Casey Watkins from Powell Middle School are among a select number of students throughout the state who qualified to compete in the 2016 Colorado Geographic Bee. The state competition will be held April 1, 2016 at the University of Denver.

Qualifying for this annual, state competition is a rigorous process. Middle school clubs meet to study capitals, principal cities, countries and physical and cultural geography. They practice with mock bees and then hold their own geography bee. The winner from each school must also take a qualifying test—with only the top 100 test-takers advancing to the Colorado Geographic Bee.

Colorado’s competition is part of the National Geographic Bee—a nationwide program sponsored by the National Geographic Society (NGS). NGS provides participating schools with test materials for preliminary and championship bees and offers winners of state bees the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. to compete against students from throughout the nation.