Most 12-year-olds looking for something fun to do wouldn't pick up an atlas and study it. But Jacob Tanner does.

The Saline seventh-grader recently returned from the National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C, where he got to rub elbows, so to speak, with "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek. To get there, Jacob won the Michigan bee in Kalamazoo in April after becoming the Saline Middle School champion. He didn't win in Washington, but he had fun competing and seeing the nation's capital, and hopes to come back next year.

To get ready for the bee, which included one contestant from each of the 50 states and from the Atlantic territories, the Pacific territories, the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense dependents schools, Jacob said he flipped randomly through atlases and found places to study.

The most interesting places he found were the disputed islands off the coast of Asia, he said.

“There are five countries that claim these islands,” said Jacob. “But they didn’t come up at the bee.”

His mother, Patti, said that her son spends much of his free time reading atlases for fun.

“Or he goes on Google Earth and follows a river up and finds tiny little towns that no one has ever heard of,” she said.

She said Jacob quizzes her and her husband "about all the places that we’ve never heard of - that was his preferred method.”

His favorite question during the national bee was one that he didn't get to answer. “It was something about where the Grand Abaco Islands are found. The answer is the Bahamas,” said Jacob.

The best part of his experience, Jacob said, was his tour of Washington, D.C., where he visited the national monuments and drove by the Capitol and Arlington Cemetery.

“We were there for four days,” he said. “My favorite was the Washington Monument because it was really tall.”

He said it was fun being so close to the national monuments because they were so important to the history of our country.

Eighth-grader Aadith Moorthy of Florida was the winner of this year’s title. He got a $25,000 scholarship, which includes a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society, and a trip to the Galapagos Islands. Jacob competed in the preliminary round but did not make the top 10,

Jacob said the bee officials paid for him and his teacher, Laurie Erby, to attend. His parents also attended the bee for the chance to see him compete.

He got the signatures of all of the other contestants, many competing for the second time, and shared a room with another contestant.

It may come as no surprise that Jacob, who likes to read and play his violin, also enjoys science and math and plans to become a professor of physics.

His favorite kind of math is geometry, “because of all those formulas," he said. "You plug in the numbers and they always work.” Alana West is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com. To reach the news desk, call 734-623-2530.