Orsini, who flew to the states over the weekend, will represent the Pacific territories in the national competition in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday and Wednesday there.
He is his school’s geography bee champion and was the overall winner in the Pacific region.
The 55 fifth to eight grade students will be competing for the top prize of $25,000 in college scholarship and lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society. The second and third prizes are college scholarships of $15,000 and $10,000.
The finalists emerged from a field of nearly 5 million students in winning their state-level competitions.
The preliminary rounds of the finals will be held on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. and top 10 will each win $500 and advance to the final round on Wednesday, which will be moderated by Alex Trebek, the host of the television quiz show “Jeopardy.”
According to John Fahey, president of the National Geographic Society, the National Geographic Bee has been at the forefront of promoting geographic literacy among young people for the past 20 years.
“This is one of the most popular programs and it has been motivated tens of millions of youngsters to learn about the world,” he said.
The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse” geographic knowledge.
