Congratulations! The 2024 UMass World Geography Bowl team came in second after a fierce final round with UConn at the New England-St Lawrence Valley (NESTVAL) World Geography Bowl on Friday, October 25, 2024.
This year’s team included MS Geography students Deni Ranguelova, Greg Rosen, Victor Pavao, Natalia Ruiz ,Ava Healy, and Hutch Tyree, and Geography BA students Andrew Alibali, Avery Kolenski, and Chris Noroian. In a new twist this year, the Salem State University team was short several players, so Greg Rosen, Avery Kolenski, and Chris Noroian joined the Salem State team.
This year’s team included MS Geography students Deni Ranguelova, Greg Rosen, Victor Pavao, Natalia Ruiz ,Ava Healy, and Hutch Tyree, and Geography BA students Andrew Alibali, Avery Kolenski, and Chris Noroian. In a new twist this year, the Salem State University team was short several players, so Greg Rosen, Avery Kolenski, and Chris Noroian joined the Salem State team.
The World Geography Bowl began in 1987 in North Carolina, and became a fully-developed national competition in 1993. Unlike primary and secondary school "geography bees," which emphasize individual proficiency, the college-level World Geography Bowl emphasizes team competitions. Half of the questions are answered through collaborations between all team members. In 2006, the competition was revised to include not only verbally-read questions, but also visual questions involving satellite images and photographs. The competition's subject matter, which ranged from climate patterns to settlement location theory, reflected Geography's synthesis of physical and social science.
The top six individual-scoring students from the 2024 NESTVAL competition will join together to form the NESTVAL team at the national World Geography Bowl, to be held in Detroit at the Spring 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers. The Association has 9 regional divisions, each of which sends a team to the national championship competition.