Maine College Knowledge Bowl

Saturday March 20, 2010 is the date for the first Maine College Knowledge Bowl for elementary and middle school students. It is sponsored by Maine College Circle in partnership with the Youth Aspirations Project, and hosted by Sebasticook Valley Middle School in Newport.

Twelve elementary schools will compete in the morning in three or four rounds of questions about college and colleges and college majors and more. Twelve middle schools will compete in the afternoon. The purpose of this event is to promote the opportunity of higher education for younger Maine students, to encourage early knowledge and information, to build more and early conversation about college opportunities, and to celebrate some aspiring Maine students.

Questions will come from crossword puzzles Maine College Circle sends to the school and their four student representatives to the event, plus from posters on college majors and colleges Maine students often consider. We encourage schools to ask each student in their school to research one college on the poster and/or one major, so that it will be a school effort to prepare their representatives for the event. We hope that this process and the event itself will be a fun challenge for everyone involved and will excite students about their educational opportunities ahead.

Many of the questions will come from information Maine College Circle and the Youth Aspirations Project have already shared in workshops. School counselors and teachers, Maine College Circle, and the Youth Aspirations Project will help participating schools prepare for the event.

Crossword puzzles will be distributed to participating schools on February 1, February 8, March 1, and March 15.

We have an initial round of invitations out to a small number of schools and already have a great collection of participating schools from throughout Maine. There is room for other interested elementary and middle schools. We hope to see the Maine College Knowledge Bowl expand in the future with events each winter and fall.

There is no cost to register. The winning team in each division (elementary and middle) will receive a $1000 award to be spent at the discretion of the team members and their school administration to promote the opportunity of higher education at their school. Second prize will be $500. Third prize will be $250.

If your Maine elementary or middle school is interested in competing, contact Bob Stuart at Maine College Circle, bstuart@mainecollegecircle.org or Kitty Mitchell at Sebasticook Valley Middle School, kmitchell@rsu19.org.

DO YOU KNOW? . . .

It is the college of pro wrestler John Cena.

The degree most commonly earned after two years in college.

The university of Governor Baldacci.

A college major very useful for communicating in Madrid.

Tom Brady’s university.

A top college for video game design in Redmond, Washington.

The northernmost college in Maine.

Mascot of the University of Florida.

City of Bates College.

First Maine college in the alphabet.

The O in UMO.

College major studying diseases.

College major beginning with E and studying bugs.

A word used to describe the cost of courses at college.

A small Maine college with strong environmental science and forestry programs in a town with the same name.

The hometown of Washington County Community College

The first college of President Obama (in California).

College major in the study of weather.

The product of a culinary arts major.

The university of Senator Susan Collins.

The state of business schools Babson and Bentley.