FARMINGTON — Miriam Cohen, a sixth-grader at Cascade Brook School, and Eli Cohan, and eighth-grader at Mt. Blue Middle School, have been notified by the National Geographic Society that they are semifinalists eligible to compete in the 2010 Maine Geographic Bee. They are the children of Vicky and Jonathan Cohen.

Geography bees were held in schools with fourth- through eighth-grade students throughout the state to determine each school’s winner. School-level winners then took a qualifying test, which they submitted to the National Geographic Society. In each of the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Dependants Schools and the U.S. territories, the National Geographic Society invited the students with the top 100 scores to compete at the state level.

The 2010 Maine Geographic Bee will be held on Friday, April 9, at the Abromson Community Education Center on the University of Southern Maine campus in Portland.

The state winner will receive $100, the “National Geographic Collegiate Atlas of the World” and a trip to Washington, D.C., where they will represent Maine in the national finals at the National Geographic Society headquarters, from May 25 to 26.

The first-place national winner will receive a $25,000 college scholarship, lifetime membership in the society and will travel, along with one parent or guardian, all expenses paid, to the Galapagos Islands. A teacher from the school district of the national winner will also receive a trip to attend the Google Geo Teacher Institute in July 2010.

For additional information on the National Geographic Bee, visit www.nationalgeographic.com/geographicbee.

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