Media Advisory: Alex Trebek to Present Canadian Geographic Challenge Awards

OTTAWA, ON--(Marketwired - April 30, 2015) -

What: Competition brings top geography students together for National Championship title
When: May 4^th, 2015
Where: Museum of Nature, Ottawa, ON
Who: Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy! to present awards to winners

Much admired Alex Trebek, celebrity host of the popular game show Jeopardy! will participate in the closing ceremonies of the Canadian Geographic (CG) Challenge in Ottawa -- a fitting honour for the person who made the event possible.

Canada's brightest Grade 7 to 10 geography students have been competing online since 2003. Thanks to a generous US$100K donation from Trebek to the National Geographic Education Foundation (NGEF), the competition has invited Canada's top high school students to Ottawa for a face-to-face competition.

Since its start in 1995, the CG Challenge has enabled more than 2 million Canadian students to test their knowledge of all things geography-related. This year, over 50,000 students from 500 schools from coast to coast to coast have participated in the Challenge. Now, the competition is down to the top 20 students.

A morning of testing on a range of geography topics will be followed by field exercises at a "top-secret" location. The top five finalists will be announced on Sunday evening. At Monday's final round at the Canadian Museum of Nature, students will be put to the test in a quiz show style. After a grueling 45 minutes, a winner will emerge. The top three will receive, respectively, a $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 award from Alex Trebek.

Trebek has a track record of supporting geography education through friendly competition. He was the longtime host of the National Geographic Bee, National Geographic Society's domestic geography competition. He recently supported the expansion of geography competition in Canada through a generous gift to the NGEF, which in April 2015 awarded a grant to the Royal Canadian Geographical Society to expand its annual Canadian Geographic Challenge to include a live event. Trebek's support is all about making honour-roll students feel special by allowing them to mix with like-minded kids and get their hands dirty. For many, this will be their first chance to do field work.

Along with the support of NGEF, the CG Challenge is sponsored by Google, which helped refresh quiz materials so they dovetail with current trends in the teaching of geography. The Canadian Museum of Nature, First Air, Vistek and the Canadian Wildlife Federation have also contributed great prizes for the Challenge's contestants.

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