We love hearing great geographic education stories, and this latest update from Esri’s K12 Education Manager, Charlie Fitzpatrick, is perfectly timed as another academic school year comes to an end. Enter the 2019 ArGIS Online Competition for Students.
Charlie shared details with the community recently, commenting as follows: “Esri challenges US students to create and share projects about something in their home states, striving to be among the best in the school, state, and nation. Esri’s 2019 ArcGIS Online US School Competition is open to high school (“HS,” gr.9-12) and middle school (“MS,” gr.4-8) students in the US who can analyze, interpret, and present data via an ArcGIS Online web app or story map.”
About the Competition
Patterned after 2016 state events by Minnesota and Arkansas, Esri launched a national challenge in 2016-17; in 2017-18, 28 states participated (results below). For 2018-19, Esri offers all states the chance to participate, with grants to states supporting ten equal prizes of $100, for the five best HS and five best MS projects in the state. Schools can submit up to five projects to the state, and states submit to Esri up to ten awardees (up to 5 HS, up to 5 MS), with one project each at HS and MS tagged for a final level of competition. From across the nation, one HS project and one MS project will each earn a trip to the 2019 Esri Education Conference in San Diego, CA, during Esri’s 50th year celebration.
Contest Eligibility
- Entrants must be pre-collegiate students registered in grades 4-12, from public schools or non-public schools, including home schools, under age 19, and have not yet received a high school diploma or equivalent
- Entrants must reside and be in school in the United States or its districts or territories: 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. (Thus, “state” in this document means one of these 56 units.)
- Students can work singly or in a team of two, but can participate in only one entry. Teams with one student in middle school (gr.4-8) and one in high school (gr.9-12) must be considered as high school.
- Entrants may work on the challenge through school, via a club, or independently, but entries must be submitted to the state from a recognized school or home school.
- Any school or home school program can submit to the state a maximum of five (5) entries total, counting the sum of middle school and high school entries
To Enter
- Entry forms (student/s to school, school to state, state to Esri) will be made available to state leads in August 2018.
- Entries must be from an ArcGIS Online Organization account (not a “public account”). Any K12 school (public, non-public, or home school) or formal youth club can request for free an ArcGIS School/Club Bundle (includes an ArcGIS Online Organization account).
- Entries must be an ArcGIS Online “web app” or “story map“.
- Entries must focus on content within the state borders. States may choose to refine the focus further, but the geographic scope of the project must be within the state. The project may reference data outside the state “for context,” but may not extend the focus of the study beyond the state borders. For example, broader patterns of environmental characteristics or demographic movements may be referenced for context, but the focus must be on phenomena within the state.
- Schools must announce their own internal deadlines, in time to complete judging and provide information to the state by its deadline. States must announce their in-state deadlines, but can be no later than 5pm Pacific Time on Wed May 15, 2019. States must submit data to Esri no later than 5pm Pacific Time on Wed May 22, 2019.
2018 Competition Results
In 2018, 28 states participated. In the 28 states receiving entries, 126 came from 46 high schools and 180 entries came from 41 middle schools. The map below has details of all the entries.
For complete competition details, instructions, resources, tips and more, see this detailed update from Charlie – Good Luck!
Additional Resources:
- ArcGIS Online for Schools
- GIS for Schools from Esri
- Esri K12 GIS Org
- Esri schools mapping bundle
- Esri ConnectEd Initiative
Numerous UK EDU institutions are using Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online
With Admin Tools Pro, GIS educators and institutions responsible for managing many student user accounts can do so much more efficiently, with fewer headaches, and enjoy many benefits.
See Also:
