Nat’l Civics Bee semi-finalists compete at Broadmoor
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(COLORADO SPRINGS) — El Paso County participated for the first time this year in the National Civics Bee, sponsored by the Daniels Fund and the United States Chamber of Commerce. The Colorado State Semi-Finals were held at The International Center at The Broadmoor Hotel on Saturday, Mar. 16, 2024.
What’s a civics bee? It’s like a spelling bee, but instead of quizzing kids on spelling, it asks questions about civics. Twenty finalists competed on Mar. 16, after being selected based on essays they wrote. The winner of today’s bee receives $500. The top three contestants from the Mar. 16 civics bee will go to Denver to participate in the Colorado State Finals on Sunday, Mar. 17, 2024.
The Colorado State Champion will go on to the National Civics Bee in Washington, D.C. on November 12, 2024, to try for the National title—and over $50,000 in prizes.
Courtesy: FOX21 Photojournalist Cora Mitchell Courtesy: FOX21 Photojournalist Cora Mitchell Courtesy: FOX21 Photojournalist Cora Mitchell Courtesy: FOX21 Photojournalist Cora Mitchell
Former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers is the Board Chairman of the Daniels Fund and attended the bee on Saturday. “The whole purpose of this is to create greater interest in civics education in America,” he said.
“We have a problem in America today. A shocking number of our high school students can’t name the three branches of government. Only 25% of our high school students are proficient in civics. The majority of our teenagers identify socialism as a superior economic system to capitalism and free enterprise, and only 30% of our adults can pass the test to become an immigrant.”
Suthers was selected to join the Daniels Fund board 8 years ago and was elected chairman 3 years ago. The fund operates in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and conducts civics bees in all four states.
“They’re pretty tough questions,” Suthers said. “The first one was, for example, ‘What’s the purpose of patent and copyright laws?’ And it had a series of possibilities. And the answer was, of course, to protect ideas and inventions. These are sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, and they’re learning some things that the average kids wouldn’t know at that age.”
A seventh-grader named Benjamin Wu, from Tacoma, WA won the 2023 National Civics Bee last year.
“We’re seeing that kids that are involved in their communities become better and more involved in their communities when they become adults,” said Michael Lordino, President of the Eastern Plains Chamber of Commerce.
“And so we’re trying to get them involved. At a young age, we’re seeing less and less civics being taught in schools, in less and less civics knowledge. And we’re seeing that when we ask adults about how much civics knowledge they have. So we’re really trying to build this from the ground up in the middle schools.”
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