Nihar Janga, an eighth-grader from Austin, Texas, with an already impressive array of awards, took home top honors Wednesday in the 31st annual National Geographic GeoBee, an elite test of geographic knowledge.
Janga triumphed during a competition at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington. The student from Austin’s Canyon Ridge Middle School was also a co-champion of the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee and a top-ten finalist in the 2018 GeoBee.
The society also held the first-ever national-level competition of the GeoChallenge, a team competition that asked for innovative solutions to modern problems. This year’s challenge: plastic pollution in our waterways.
A team from Flushing Christian School in Flushing, New York, won by building a model filtration device to clear plastic debris from the Hudson River.
The winning team will receive $25,000 plus support to implement their project. Janga will receive a $25,000 college scholarship, a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society and an expedition to the Galápagos Islands aboard the National Geographic Endeavour ll.