Auburn Middle dominates Black History Month Quiz Bowl
The two seventh grade teams from Auburn Middle School took first and second place at Saturday's Black History Month Quiz Bowl. Photo by Travis Williams/The Burgs
CHRISTIANSBURG — More than 100 people packed Christiansburg High School’s auditorium Saturday afternoon to watch students from across Montgomery County test their knowledge of African-American history and culture in the second annual Black History Month Quiz Bowl.
Five teams made up of four participants each took part in the Jeopardy- style tournament put on by the joint efforts of The Community Group and Christiansburg High School’s Black Student Awareness Club.
The contest consisted of questions regarding African-American history, art, and pop culture, which were compiled by the Virginia Tech chapter of the NAACP and made available to each team in January.
Though teams from four separate schools competed, it was Auburn Middle School alone in the final round of competition.
The two teams, made up entirely of seventh-grade students, met in the final match, both having defeated teams representing high schools along the way.
The two battled closely into the final round, where the squad of Jessica Shelburne, Jaeda Gutierrez, Brady Linkous, and Addison Bryant overtook their classmates by correctly identifying Sigma Gamma Rho as the African-American sorority found on the campus of Butler University.
Auburn Middle social studies teacher Cheryl Burrell-Graves coached both teams and said her students had been working extremely hard, meeting once a week after school to study since January.
She described the large amount of content to be challenge, not only for the students, but also for herself.
“We’ve all learned together,” Burrell-Graves said.
She added that one tactic she believes greatly assisted her students early in the learning process was the use of content-related YouTube clips.
Burrell-Graves said she was extremely proud of her students, especially because of the lack of racial diversity she sees in Riner.
By her account, Auburn Middle School only has one African-American student and of the three schools located in Riner, Burrell-Graves said she is the only African-American teacher.
For their efforts, each member of Auburn’s first-place team received $75, while the second-place group received $50 each.
The Eastern Montgomery High School team came in third, while Blacksburg Middle took fourth and Christiansubrg High came in fifth.
The Roanoke Times | 381-1643
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
The Black History Month Quiz Bowl is a wonderful idea. Congratulations to all of the teams for their learning efforts!
Comment by SF — February 28, 2012 @ 9:55 pm
When is quiz bowl for 2012>
Comment by jaja jaja — September 25, 2012 @ 8:01 pm