Year 11 students, Maeve Sorensen and Alex Bull are the 2024 New Zealand winners (first equal with Cashmere High School in Christchurch) of the annual Maatangi Whenua Geography quiz. Congratulations Maeve & Alex!
Organised by the New Zealand Geographical Society, and held in VUW’s School of Geography and Earth Sciences, twelve teams from Whanganui-a-Tara came together to answer questions on a range of geography related themes. The eight round competition included ‘Geography in the News’, ‘A-Z of the Atlas’, ‘Emoji That’ and a topographical map skills round focused on Hong Kong. Maeve’s adventure racing skills and Alex’s tramping and world travel experiences made them strong candidates to make a team. A good job too, as their other team member was ill on the day, so Maeve and Alex prevailed against teams of three!
Hot on the heels of Maeve and Alex – who scored 148 out of a possible 180 points – were another Onslow team, composed of Eloise Meijer, Ezra Shaw and Paddy Gilhooly. These three also did impressively well as they were asked to model geographic phenomena with playdough, and work out the location of cities and countries from around the world using photographs and clues. Scoring 134 pts was also a great effort, and both teams came away with a swag of VUW goodies and the respect of students and teachers at the event.
Aiming for a threepeat in 2025, it seems the Year 11 relationship with the Maatangi Whenua Trophy is a bit like Geography…we’d be lost without it!
