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Congratulations to the 2021 Esri Young Scholar Award Winners!

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06-15-2021 09:26 AM
JosephKerski
by Esri Notable Contributor
Esri Notable Contributor
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‎06-15-2021 09:26 AM

Coordinated by Esri's international distributors and Esri's international and education teams, the Esri Young Scholars Award program was launched in 2012. Winners are honored each year at the Esri User Conference. The program recognizes the exemplary work of current undergraduate and graduate students majoring in geospatial science disciplines at international universities. Winning entries are selected by a university panel formed by Esri's distributor in the recipient's respective country. Award winners typically travel to San Diego to present their work and join 20,000 GIS professionals in a week-long program of presentations, workshops, and social events,  This year, the students will be recognized virtually before over 50,000 conference attendees. This year, 29 Young Scholars were awarded from 6 continents.  These scholars tackled problems ranging from development, walkability, wildfires, greenspace planning, education, floods, health, and many more.  To accomplish their work, they performed some deeply insightful spatial analysis using Esri GIS software, incorporating existing data sets along with their own generated data, created web mapping applications, and conducted a wide range of field and office work. The scholars honed their communication skills by creating graphs, charts, maps, story maps, and posters, many of which are visible in the slideshow below and in the story map (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ecce5ae18edc42c99760c10b23d429fc). 

See for yourself! Use this story map that features the work that these fine Young Scholars have done that my colleagues here at Esri and I created.

  • Study the Young Scholar's posters and storymaps and explore the methods, data, and tools that they used.
  • Show your students, colleagues, and others how GIS helps make wise decisions and build a better world.
  • Use the story map to get a sense for the diversity of scales, themes, and problems that can be addressed with GIS.
  • Use the story map as an idea of one of the story map templates (a slideshow) that you could use to highlight students, or issues, or your own work. 
  • Think of the Young Scholar program and be inspired that the future of GIS is in good hands!

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Selection of 2021 Esri Young Scholars and their work.  For more detail, see this story map.

About the Author
I believe that spatial thinking can transform education and society through the application of Geographic Information Systems for instruction, research, administration, and policy. I hold 3 degrees in Geography, have served at NOAA, the US Census Bureau, and USGS as a cartographer and geographer, and teach a variety of F2F (Face to Face) (including T3G) and online courses. I have authored a variety of books and textbooks about the environment, STEM, GIS, and education. These include "Interpreting Our World", "Essentials of the Environment", "Tribal GIS", "The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data", "International Perspectives on Teaching and Learning with GIS In Secondary Education", "Spatial Mathematics" and others. I write for 2 blogs, 2 monthly podcasts, and a variety of journals, and have created over 5,000 videos on the Our Earth YouTube channel. Yet, as time passes, the more I realize my own limitations and that this is a lifelong learning endeavor and thus I actively seek mentors and collaborators.