Student represents North in Ottawa
Grade 7 student one of youngest at Canadian Geographic event
Sarah Ladik
Northern News Services
Thursday, June 9, 2016
INUVIK
How many of the official provincial and territorial birds do you know?
Joshua DeKwant prior to heading to Ottawa for the Canadian Geographic Challenge last week. He says geography is a lot more than being able to read maps. - Sarah Ladik/NNSL photo
|
Joshua DeKwant knows all of them. The Grade 7 student at East Three Secondary School went to Ottawa last week to represent the territory at the National Geographic Challenge, where he competed against 19 other students from all over the country.
While he did not make the final round, DeKwant said he would be one of the youngest competitors at the event, which includes students in Grades 7 through 10.
"I think it's about finding new places you probably didn't know of," he told the Drum last week, before leaving town for the nation's capital.
"I think it's fun and you learn a lot."
To get to the challenge, DeKwant had to first beat out the rest of his class in geography.
After coming in first place in that first round, he moved on to the territorial level, in which he completed an online test, scoring top marks against students from all over the Northwest Territories.
"My teacher said I had won the territorials, and I started studying," DeKwant said.
Before leaving, DeKwant said he was most looking forward to finding out what the questions were going to be, but also to the activities that were not necessarily related to the competition.
"They have a lot of activities, like a scavenger hunt," he said.
"And I'm looking forward to meeting new people and making some friends."
Having done his research, DeKwant learned there were only a few Grade 7 students at the challenge last year, so he knew going in that he would be one of the younger competitors. Still, he said he expected it to be a fun experience and one that would also serve as an important learning opportunity.
"I'm probably a little anxious about going there and meeting everyone," he said.
"But it's a cool opportunity, even if the questions are super hard."
