At Miami Palmetto Senior High, the Geography Bee and History Bee are sponsored by AP World History teacher Julianne Farkas, and they are quiz competitions testing students’ knowledge of geography and history. The International Academic Competitions host them at the regional, national or international level. The History Bee focuses mostly on world history, while the Geography Bee includes both world and U.S. geography.
The Panther: How did you get involved in this?
Annika Adamo: I got involved through my friend Golden Brown, reaching out to me and asking if I was interested in joining a team she was putting together during our sophomore year. We are both very passionate about history and have spent a lot of time talking to Mrs. Farkas about it, so when Mrs. Farkas offered Golden the chance to make her own team, she asked me if I wanted to join, and I was very happy to.
Alex Perodin: So in ninth grade, I was in Mrs. Farkas’ AP World History class, and she brought it to us as something like an interesting project or an interesting activity that we could participate in. So basically that year, I went with Golden Brown, and we were the two freshmen who were on the history bee team, and we collaborated with some sophomores. We had a combined team of two sophomores and two freshmen, and we got third place. So we are very proud of that.
The Panther: What do you think is the most important piece of world history you think people need to know?
Annika Adamo: The most important piece of world history, I think, people need to know is a concept that Mrs. Farkas taught me in ninth-grade World History. She made sure to teach all of us that history is never just black and white, but also all the different shades of gray in between. When people think of world history, they often think of tragedy or victory, but to me, it is so very important to remember all of the real and regular people who have existed and experienced life and loss without it having to be on some monumental scale. Making sure to remember all of the small people and the small events that have made up world history is a very important part of learning about world history as a whole.
Alex Perodin: The most important piece of history that people should know is how this country was formed. I mean, we know about the founding fathers, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, but I think there are a lot of people behind the scenes who do not get the kind of spotlight that they deserve. I think a lot of the time, people can be underrepresented.
The Panther: What is your preparation for this?
Annika Adamo: To prepare for the Geography and History Bee, the main thing we do is make sure that we are together as a team, and learn how to work with each other when it comes to deciding on answers or our strategies. I also like to read through past notes and books from the history classes I have taken over the past three years.
Alex Perodin: Our preparation for the event is no preparation, because the questions are very hard to study for. They almost seem random. So basically, you have to go in with an open mic and absorb the information that you learned in your history class the year prior. But really, you cannot focus or study for individual questions.
The Panther: What is something you do on competition day to get rid of the nerves?
Annika Adamo: The way I work to get rid of nerves on competition day overlaps with how I prepare, as I like to remind myself that I am passionate about history and that I know a lot about it. Having to prove our amount of knowledge and dedication to a topic can get really stressful, so to calm myself and my teammates down, it is super important to remind ourselves that we do this because it makes us happy, and we know a lot more than we might think. We also try to joke around and relax before we start rounds or in between different rounds to take some of the serious edge off.
Alex Perodin: To get rid of the nerves, we watched a Disney movie last year while waiting. So that is really effective.
The Panther: Do you consider this to be a team or individual event? Why?
Annika Adamo: I definitely consider this to be a team event. Sometimes we might rely on one person to be able to answer one question, but overall, we really function and work the best as a team. It is really important to be able to have trust in the abilities and knowledge of all of your teammates, and I feel like we definitely have that on our team.
Alex Perodin: A team event. Because you can have teams of up to five people sitting at the table at once, and we all collaborate to answer the question that we give to the moderator.
