When I teach GIS, we always have an end of course project where the students have to work on a GIS project. I always encourage the student to work on a map of something that they like. I don't know why I always remember the map of the location of the "Hello Kitty" stores in the West USA. She was a huge collector of Hello Kitty stuff and why not? By the way, she even called all of the stores and got an idea of the size of the store and use a Hello Kitty logo-sized based to show the location.
In other words, engage them by doing something that they like.