This certainly is turning out to be a great year for homeschoolers in academic competitions!

Vocabulary Whiz

First, on March 5, part-time homeschoooler Robert Marsland swept the field to win the first-ever GSN National Vocabulary Championship. This garnered him $40,000 towards his college education. (A one-hour special featuring highlights of the competition was aired later in the year, on April 15.)

Although the competition site lists Robert's school as "St. Ambrose Academy," this is only part of the story. Robert was homeschooling through the eighth grade, and continued taking Scholars Online courses in Greek, Latin, and Literature after that.

You'll find the complete story in our upcoming issue of Practical Homeschooling. For more about Robert and the competition, check this out: http://www.winwithwords.com

Super Scientist

On May 18, 16-year-old homeschooler Philip Streich won a $50,000 scholarship as one of the "best of the best" in this year's Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (the Intel ISEF), garnering one of the three Intel Foundation Young Scientist awards.

Philip did this with his amazing word demonstrating that carbon nanotubes are thermodynamically stable. To prove his point, he invented and built his own lab equipment, which measures scattered photons better than the equipment sold to labs!

You can see the story, plus a video interview, here:
http://www.cogito.org/Articles/ArticleDetail.aspx?ContentID=16675

Female Geo Bee Star

On May 23, 14-year-old homeschooler Caitlin Snaring became the first girl in 17 years to win the National Geographic Bee. Amazingly, it was her first shot at the competition. Read more about it (and see a photo of Caitlin) here:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3204969&page=1

Spelling Bee Champion

Finally, on May 31, 13-year-old homeschooler Evan O'Dorney was the fourth homeschooler (since 1997) to take home the coveted Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy. It comes with $35,000 cash, a $5,000 college scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond, and assorted goodies. Evan is pretty good at another school subject, too. Check out this story:
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/S/SPELLING_BEE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

How to Win

Wonder why homeschooled kids keep doing so well in these and similar competitions, year after year? Then check out these articles on our site:

How to "Bee" a Spelling Success

How to "Bee" a Spelling Winner (a different article, by a Bee competitor)

What We Can Learn from the Homeschooled 2002 National Geography Bee Winners

How to Win the Geography Bee

Think Math Contests!