2-21-09

Fall Mountain Whips ‘Em at WorldQuest

By Chuck Bingaman, Contributing Writer

            Fall Mountain High School’s four-student Academic WorldQuest team Monday evening bested The Putney School, Vermont Academy and two other Vermont public high schools in their knowledge of world affairs and qualified to head to Washington, DC for the national championship tourney in April.

            Sponsored by the Windham World Affairs Council and the World Affairs Councils of America, Academic WorldQuest is an annual competition for high school students held throughout the country.  The fifty winners of regional competitions face-off in the nation’s capital several weeks later.

            “Academic WorldQuest is a very tough competition over a wide range of foreign affairs subject matter,” according to Nick Belsky, Fall Mountain’s veteran coach and social studies teacher. “This year the fifty questions covered international water issues, international justice, the impact of Internet connectivity in world affairs, Germany, Russia and current events”

            What made Walpole’s victory even sweeter was that the school’s top four students on the team all had to cancel their participation because of conflicts with other break week activities.  Hence Belsky had to draw upon his “bench” to make up the team that competed Monday night.  “The kids who had to drop out provided their notes and supported our team, though. And the kids that we fielded did their studying and research very diligently!”

            FM’s winning team included Welcome Fry, a sophomore from Walpole, Nathaniel (Nattie) Locke, a senior from Alstead, McKenzie Klema, from Charlestown, and Quinn Prentiss-Sturgill, a junior from Charlestown. 

            Each student, according to Belsky, was primarily in charge of boning up on one or two content areas.  Belsky teaches them to confer together on all questions but that the person primarily in charge of his or her area has the final say on answers in his or her area.  Unlike the more familiar “Quiz Bowl”, the emphasis in WorldQuest is on subject matter understanding and not so much on speed in answering.

            “I was mainly in charge of preparing on biotechnology and genetics and on the Internet connectivity subjects,” Nattie Locke said yesterday.  “And we all had lists of web sites to study, a Worlds Affairs “Great Decisions” volume to read, and lots of currents events to follow in the papers.”

            The event—both on regional and national levels--consists of 50 questions in five sets of ten.  At the half Monday evening, Fall Mountain trailed The Putney School by three points, but the Wildcats won with a very strong showing in the second half.

            Last year’s Fall Mountain team also won the regional competition and competed in the nation’s capital, finishing in the middle of the other 50 regional winners.  “This year’s team,” said Belsky, “is committed to redoubling our efforts from last year and bestng last year’s performance.  They’re psyched and I’m psyched!”

            “We have to really study now to get ready for Washington,” Locke said yesterday, “I’ve heard that the questions are even more difficult there and the competition is really tough.  But it’ll really be fun!”

            For further information about Academic WorldQuest, see www.worldaffairscouncils.org.

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