TGA Announcement 1/11/2021
2021 Map Competition for Tennessee Students
Tennessee ArcGIS Online Map Contest
Good Afternoon All,
I just wanted to let you know that the mapping contest website is now open and accepting registrations for this year’s contest. For those that are new to the contest, and as a reminder for our veterans, here is a high level overview:
- One teacher from all interested schools (public, private, home school) registers online at https://sites.google.com/utk.edu/tn-ago-contest/home in the Teacher Registration tab using a Google Form. Deadline to register your school is Friday March 26, 2021 by 5:00 pm ET. There is no penalty if you register but don’t have any students participate, so I recommend you go ahead and register just in case.
- I’ll take the information you submit through the form and fill out the official ESRI spreadsheet and send you a copy. (You will fill in the missing parts of the spreadsheet and return it to me after your school has selected the top 5 entries – see below).
- We’ll be hosting a series of webinars this spring that cover a wide variety of topics from how to manage an ArcGIS Online account for your school to cartography best practices using ArcGIS Online. These webinars will be announced in advance and recorded in case you can’t attend live. You and your participating students are welcome to attend.
- Students should pick a mapping topic that focuses on something specific to Tennessee. In the past students have worked on projects with a statewide focus like natural disasters and other students have picked hyperlocal projects for their own city or town. Others have picked global topics, like refugee migration, but tied it into their own city.
- Students should plan on creating at least one layer of data rather than relying solely on data from others.
- The final deliverable will consist of two separate items
- A published story map about their project
- A project “Details” page in ArcGIS Online (what data was used, what are the sources of the data, what processing steps did you take, etc)
- Students can work independently or in pairs.
- Each teacher will send me, via email, the completed spreadsheet mentioned above that contains the top five projects you want to submit to the state for judging. The deadline to submit the spreadsheet is Friday April 30, 2021 by 5:00 pm ET.
- Teachers will also submit, as a scanned PDF, a signed permission form for participating students. Permission form is available on the contest website.
- The state will announce the top five maps in each division no later than Monday May 10, 2021.
- All students who submit a project will receive a certificate mailed to the school.
- The top five story maps across the state in the middle school division and the high school division will earn $100 in gift cards. Gift cards are mailed to the school’s address. Gift cards are provided in $50 amounts in case students work in pairs
- The top map in each division will also receive a custom plaque. These plaques will be mailed to the school.
- These top two projects will be submitted to ESRI for the national level competition.
- Esri will announce the national winners on Tuesday June 1, 2021. In the past, ESRI has featured the top middle and high school winners at their international user conference. There is a high likelihood of a virtual event this year so we’ll wait and see what they announce.
Once you have registered your school I’ll follow up with a checklist to help keep all the details in order. I’ve already heard from one interested teacher that a Slack channel would be helpful for keeping in touch. If that is preferred over email just let me know and I’ll set it up.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or comments.
Michael Camponovo
GIS Outreach Coordinator
University of Tennessee
(865) 974-5348