Australia's team to the 2008 International Geography Olympiad in Tunisia has been announced and Michael Mueller, Year 12, is among the four exceptional students.

Teams from 24 countries will compete in the Olympiad which is held under the auspices of the International Geographical Union.

The selection process for Australia’s team started with the National Geographic Channel Australian Geography Competition, in which 86,000 students participated last year.

From that Competition, the highest scoring male and female students in Year 11 were offered places in Geography’s Big Week Out.

The team was picked based on students' work at Geography's Big Week Out . five days of challenging geographical activities, focussing on fieldwork, held in Noosa, Queensland, in December.

'The standard of the students' work at Geography’s Big Week Out was outstanding,' said Kathryn Berg, competition coordinator. “It was very hard to narrow our selection down to just four.'

'Competing in an Olympiad is a fantastic experience for these young people. It's just not the overseas trip. It's the bonding with other gifted students from all around the world that really makes this so memorable,' said Ms Berg.

The Geography Olympiad, to be held in August, will be based at Carthage, Tunisia, and will include a fieldwork trip into the desert to research people and water in arid areas.

Students entering the 2008 Competition have the chance to win places in the teams to the 2009 National Geographic World Championship, possibly in Russia, for students under 16 years old, and to the Asia Pacific Regional Geography Olympiad in Japan, for students 16 and over.

Congratulations Michael.