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Maya Patel is a 14-year-old 8th grader at Liberty Middle School in Tampa. She’s a member of the National Junior Honor Society and vice president of the Future Business Leaders of America club. She enjoys travel, listening to Bollywood music, exercising, cooking and scrapbooking. She hopes to become Secretary of …

Krish Patel is a 12-year-old 6th grader at Pinewood Preparatory School in Summerville, northwest of Charleston. He represented South Carolina at the 2011 National Geographic Bee. He enjoys playing and watching all sports and keeping their stats. He also likes writing stories and poems. He’d like to visit Tibet. ➡ …

Karthik Karnik is a 14-year-old 8th grader at King Philip Regional Middle School in Norfolk, southwest of Boston. He represented Massachusetts at the 2011 National Geographic Bee. He enjoys chess, soccer and tennis and using his knowledge of geography to analyze world events. He’d like to visit another planet that …

Daniel Picard is a 13-year-old 7th grader at Berry Middle School in Hoover, south of Birmingham. He represented Alabama at the 2011 National Geographic Bee. He’s on his school’s math team and the Scholars’ Bowl team that competed in the state tournament. He plays the tenor saxophone and the piano …

Gabe Cuneo is a 12-year-old 6th grader at Shepherd Lutheran School in Albuquerque. He is the 2012 state champion for the American Scholastic Achievement League’s Scholastic Challenge. He has taken eight top finishes in state swimming events, including 2nd in 50m backstroke. He enjoys biking. ➡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoSubscribe About National …

Arnav Jagasia is a 14-year-old 8th grader at Radnor Middle School in Wayne, northwest of Philadelphia. He performs and competes in piano festivals and enjoys sight-reading new music. He’s training for a black belt in Tang Soo Do. He hopes to have a career in international business. He’d like to …

Ari Papahronis is a 13-year-old 7th grader at Sequoyah Middle School in Edmond, near Oklahoma City. He plays the trumpet in the Central Oklahoma Directors Association Honor Band; he also plays the piano. Among those he admires are his teachers. He’d like to visit China and Japan because of their …

Max Levine is a 13-year-old 6th grader at Wheeler School in Providence. He enjoys drawing maps of real and made-up countries, using Google Earth, playing the violin and reading atlases and almanacs. He would like to write travel books, be a geography professor or have his own travel show. ➡ …

Caroline Peterson is a 14-year-old 8th grader from Granger, representing St. Joseph County Homeschoolers, South Bend. She’s played the violin for 10 years and is assistant principal second violin in a youth orchestra. She has written three novels and enjoys Latin, literature and history. Her dream is to be a …

Hayden Toftner is an 11-year-old 6th grader at Olentangy Berkshire Middle School in Galena, north of Columbus. Interests include reading, developing details of his imaginary country and computer games. The best place he has been to is Maine; he enjoyed hiking and eating lobster. He would like to visit Germany. …