Senior Zevi Davis doesn’t spend his free time like his peers, instead he’s spent hours learning unique hobbies. He draws, plays the viola, edits videos, speaks French, plays GeoGuessr, makes social media content and plays the accordion. Davis is admired by many peers and is often looked at as an inspiration due to the fact that he learns all these hobbies in his free time.

One of Davis’ most notable hobbies is GeoGuessr, which is a game that randomly puts you into a country and you have to guess where you are based on the Google Earth image you’re shown. According to a report done by the International Technology and Education Journal, author Mustafa Girgin explains how games like GeoGuessr help support children learning of the world around them. On top of that, children that participate in educational games have an intellectual advantage over their peers.

“Primarily based on guessing, these types of games contribute highly to solving problems by reasoning…Another significant contribution of the games is that players reach to information and learn by themselves. As a conclusion, it is understood that they agreed on the GeoGuessr game being a nice tool that supports learning,” Girgin said.

DGS social studies teacher Tracy Culcasi taught Davis his sophomore year for AP United States History [APush]. She thinks that games like GeoGuessr helps students understand history and the world around them.

“In general, just having a sense of where things are, and obviously, most people haven’t had the opportunity, at this point in their lives, to really travel a lot outside the United States, or sometimes even in the United States. So just being able to get a sense of where places are, with GeoGuessr specifically, that’s the one where you actually see the street scene. So you can get a sense of what a country looks like, and just to get a better sense of the culture and what languages they speak. So I think GeoGuessr just helps students understand the world a little bit better,” Culcasi said.

Davis agrees that GeoGuessr helps him in school because it teaches him how to memorize and apply information.

“Being able to figure out ways to quickly retain information. Definitely it’s like a kind of tangentially related, because you’re learning the skill of being able to absorb information in ways that you know you can remember and apply readily, because you can memorize all these details but if you don’t know how to apply them especially in GeoGuessr there’s no point,” Davis said.

Davis started GeoGuessr in 2021 during COVID and then picked up the accordion two years later. The Davis family loves Zevi Davis’ hobbies and they have become family hobbies as well. Zevi Davis’ younger brother Kaleo Davis is a freshman at DGS and looks up to Zevi Davis and thinks that his hobbies have changed their family dynamic and they now look up to Zevi Davis and can’t wait to see what he will do in the future.

“You could see how hard working he is. Being there to support him has made our family stronger. Especially because he’s got all these new talents, I don’t know how many languages he’s learned, I can’t do that, and because of that we all look up to him in that way,” Kaleo Davis said

Zevi Davis has extended his audience past his family and started posting on his Instagram videos of him GeoGuessing and playing the accordion almost two years ago. These videos have racked up thousands of views. He makes all these videos himself and in the process picked up yet another hobby of video editing. Zevi Davis would love to make video editing fit into his career path and plans on putting out tons of content on his Instagram this summer. Zevi Davis is attending Northwestern next year to study Veterinary Medicine.

“I think with GeoGuessr and video editing specifically, I definitely have sort of had the interest in trying to make that a career, I think over the summer, because I do have like a four month window, I’m gonna try to push out as much content as I can. I know it would be a lot of work [to go into Veterinary Medicine], but if anything picks up, then I’d be willing to go down that path. But if not, I’m fine. Just like keeping it as a hobby, but hopefully other people are interested in it and I can if I can profit off of it, that’s great, but if not, that’s also fine,” Zevi Davis said.

Senior Sakthi Rajeshkrumar has been friends with Zevi Davis for three years now, and she thinks that his hobbies help him in school and he hopes that he will continue these hobbies in the future.

“These hobbies help him, because he said he has such an innate curiosity within him that is fueled by like GeoGuessr, trying to find out where he is in the world relative to other people, finding kind of like discovering, like the language of music, trying to kind of put the world into music notes and just artistic expressions, and he uses that in school. When I’m with him, he always will ask the teacher the one question that actually stumps them, or will have them saying that. I’ll have to get back to you, because he asks those questions, the ones nobody asks because he has this kind of wonder inside of him that I think comes from his hobbies and like pursuit of the world around him,” Rajeshkumar said.

Culcasi agrees, she thinks that as a student he works very hard and the skills like drawing that he’s learned outside of school help him in school.

“As a student, he’s a very hard worker, very detail oriented, and he’s also a very good artist. So like, for example, in A-Push they [the students] have to do Degler diagrams, and he would just create these beautiful work of art types of diagrams,” Culcasi said.

Rajeshkumar thinks that skills Zevi Davis has gained from his hobbies help him understand the world around him. She feels that hobbies like the ones Zevi Davis has helps drive his love of curiosity.

“Zevi is a multi-talented individual. He is an incredible musician. He is also an insanely good artist, and he has a very good sense of current and historical like political knowledge, which I think also drives his passion for GeoGuessr and trying to understand the world around him,” Rajeshkumar said.

For Zevi Davis he looks at these hobbies as part of his identity, he feels that he’s able to express himself through his hobbies. In an article written by Harvard Health, Executive Editor and Harvard Health Letter Heidi Godman explains how hobbies create a sense of self-expression and cognitive stimulation which is connected to good mental health.

“hobbies — such as arts and crafts, games, gardening, volunteering, or participating in clubs — involve creativity, sensory engagement, self-expression, relaxation, and cognitive stimulation, which are linked to good mental health and well-being,” Godman said.

Zevi Davis feels that these hobbies add to his personality and make him feel fulfilled in life, especially because his hobbies aren’t considered normal hobbies.

“My hobbies make me feel fulfilled. The accordion is kind of a strange instrument to play and GeoGuessr, it’s a very weird and not practical skill. These hobbies make me happy and feel fulfilled, so I think that’s the whole point. Then with GeoGuessr specifically, it’s nice because there’s these very specific online communities dedicated to this stuff. So having that sense of connection over such an unconventional or like specific hobby is also nice, it helps you find community,” Zevi Davis said.

Kaleo Davis agrees, he thinks that Zevi Davis’ hobbies reflect his work ethic as he’s been working for over two years on some of his hobbies.

“His hobbies show how hard working he is. He doesn’t give up and sticks to it, and I think he’s also super creative. I didn’t even know what GeoGuessr was before he started playing it, and I don’t know, I know a lot of people who have learned about it and learned a lot from him with all those hobbies, he’s just inspirational,” Kaleo Davis said.

Rajeshkumar explains how while most people learn hobbies for themselves Zevi Davis has used his hobbies to help others, and is just a kind and caring person.

“I’m definitely one of the people who would consider myself inspired by Zevi, because he’s just that kind of person who likes to do things. I feel like a lot of the people I’ve met like they’re good people, but they only seek to further themselves, but he is one of those people who tries to help other people. I remember, in A-Push there were these things called Brinkley buzzwords. And he made this huge document where he would like to write out all the buzz words on it and he would share them with everyone, and if people didn’t get the chance to read the section, they would like to look at those because there was always an essay question at the test. So he’s just the kind of person who through his work, likes to help other people and not just himself,” Rajeshkumar said.

While Zevi Davis is moving on to the next steps in his life, he will continue to learn new skills, as he wants to continue his love of learning and hopes to inspire others and teach them.

“I definitely do have the desire to teach people how to do it. Sometimes I question why I’m so motivated to, like, learn and do GeoGuessr, honestly, and I think I do definitely feel the urge to share that interest with someone else through teaching or doing it [one of his hobbies] with someone else,” Zevi Davis said.