Shady Side Academy Middle School seventh grader Pedro da Silva is one of 100 students statewide who qualified to compete in the 2019 National Geographic GeoBee State Competition, which will be held March 29 in Harrisburg, Pa.

Now in its 31st year, the National Geographic GeoBee is an annual geography competition designed to inspire and reward students' curiosity about the world. Students in grades 4-8 from nearly 10,000 schools across the United States compete for a chance to win college scholarships and the glory of being the GeoBee Champion.

The GeoBee includes three levels of competition: school, state and national. Schools conduct a GeoBee and name a school champion. As SSA's champion, da Silva moved on to take a proctored online qualifying test, and the top 100 ranked students in each state qualified to represent their school at the state competition. One champion from each state and territory will advance to the national championship, held May 19-22 at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C.

da Silva's interest in geography and history started at an early age. He has an avid interest in different alphabets, and at age 4 was able to write the Russian, Arabic and Greek alphabets. At age 5, he could sing the state capitals of the United States.

Congratulations and good luck, Pedro!