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DARIEN, Conn. Darien seventh-grader Michael Borecki is still the top geography student in Connecticut after winning the Connecticut Geographic Bee for the second year in a row.
Michael, a student at Middlesex Middle School, missed only two questions in his victory Friday at Central Connecticut State University. He clinched his win by knowing which landlocked African country harvests timber and floats it down the Ubangi River to transportation facilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The answer: the Central African Republic.
This is the fourth year Borecki has taken part in the state competition. After winning last year, he traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National Geographic Bee, led by Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Borecki will be making the trip to the national stage again this year on May 24 and 25.
Borecki has a passion for history and geography. His favorite historical period is the century from 1850 to 1950. He also competes against other schools on the Middlesex Quiz Bowl Team, which placed 22nd out of 545 teams from all over the world at a recent competition.
To prepare for the competition, Borecki studied several times a week with the Middlesex librarian Barbara Ivey. Together, they used encyclopedias and study guides to tackle history, culture, geography and current events.
Jackson Hart, a fourth-grader at Ox Ridge Elementary School, and Nicholas Derby, a fourth-grader at Tokeneke Elementary School, joined Borecki at the state competition. To make it to the state level, each boy won his schools competition and then completed a 70-question qualifying exam. They all scored in the Top 100 in Connecticut.
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