Taiwan wins 2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze at iGeo 2024 geography contest

Taipei, Aug. 26 (CNA) Taiwan won two gold, one silver and one bronze at the 20th International Geography Olympiad (iGeo) that was held Aug. 19-24 in Ireland, ranking fourth place behind the United States, Australia and Indonesia.

This year's result represents Taiwan's best performance in the international geography competition for 16 to 19-year-old students that has been held annually since 1996.

Su Po-yuan (蘇柏元), a graduate from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, and Tseng Hsiang-chien (曾向謙), a graduate from Taichung Municipal Taichung First Senior High School, each gained golds at the event.

In the process of preparing for the competition, Su said he learned a lot of practical skills such as cartography, observation and the application of geography-related knowledge, which gave him different perspectives on the world and Taiwan.

Tseng said that for him, geography is a "tool for understanding the world."

The comprehensive and open format of the iGeo covers major aspects of geography, encouraging students to discover, analyze and solve problems, and apply geographic knowledge to the resolution of real-world problems, Tseng said.

Meanwhile, Tien Hsiu-ming (田修明), a student from the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University, seized a silver, and Chi Chun-han (紀均翰), a graduate from Taichung Municipal Taichung First Senior High School, bagged a bronze.

According to a statement issued by the Taiwan Geography Olympiad and Committee on Sunday, iGeo consists of three parts: a written test, a multimedia test and a substantial fieldwork exercise. Participants are required to answer all test questions in English.

Taiwan's team was led by Ho Lih-der (何立德), head of the Department of Geography at National Kaohsiung Normal University, and Wang Sen-do (王聖鐸), an associate professor with the Department of Geography at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). NTNU's Department of Geography oversaw training for the four-member team.

This year's competition took place at Maynooth University in Ireland. Test questions were based on geographical features of the campus, downtown streets and the area in front of the train station in Maynooth, a town of around 17,000 located west of Dublin.

Contestants were asked to analyze the well-being of campus life, sidewalk accessibility and land use according to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal indicators, said Wang.

He said in addition to observing, recording and evaluating, contestants also had to draw landscapes and land-use maps in a short period of time.

This posed a great challenge and the performance of the four Taiwanese contestants was remarkable, the professor added.