Account: Entries must be from the ArcGIS Online Organization of an ArcGIS School Bundle license. This license can be operated by, e.g., the student's school or club, the district, the state GIS Education Team, or similar group. The entry must be able to remain visible publicly without login through at least June 2026 (one year past the close of this event), ideally longer.

Login/Sharing: Entries must be shared with the public, visible without requiring a login. Entries engaging "premium data" (login required, such as premium content from Living Atlas) must set the display to permit access without needing a login. See helpful note.

Originality: Entries must be "current original work by the students," conceived, created, and completed during the 2024-25 academic year by the student(s) submitting the entry. Use of "generative artificial intelligence (AI)" is not permitted; basic spell-check and grammar-check tools are permitted. Projects may use data generated by outside persons or institutions, within guidelines of "fair use." Students are encouraged to use appropriate professionally generated GIS data, but these must be documented as a source, and the integration, treatment, and presentation must be original. Entries must represent the students' work from the current academic year, 2024-25. Incorporating data (layers or maps) from a previous year's entry is permitted for historical reference, but the focus must be on current work that is substantively beyond the previous content, and the documentation must clarify what previously created content is being re-used; for instance, a student working on a project in Year1 might reuse some data in a somewhat similar project in Year3 but must expand substantially on the data, change the project focus, improve the analysis, and document what has been re-used.

Visual Supports: Because this is meant to be a "map-centric" exploration, analysis, and presentation of a geographic phenomenon, permission to use "non-map visuals" (images and videos) is very limited. Exceeding the limits means a "progressive reduction in judged score." The limits are:

1. Total of no more than 60 seconds of video, which must be created by the project author (animated images count as a video; time-enabled map layers do not count as a video)

2. Total of up to three images not created by the project author (e.g., 1 historic portrait photo plus 2 historic landscape photos)

3. Total of up to six images created by the project author (replication of project maps as smaller/thumbnail images and items visible in pop-ups within interactive maps do not count against these limits; icons used to help delineate organization within the entry do not count against these limits).

Scoring: The state will use the same system for scoring both HS and MS entries, and the system will be clarified for the entrants at the start. We look for a clear focus/topic/question/story, good and appropriate data, effective analysis, good cartography, thoughtful presentation, and complete documentation.

Project Tips:

1. Look at previous national winners on the Esri website – as well as honorable mention projects – or look at the previous Louisiana state winners on GGI's website​. This is above all a "map competition." Entries should address an identified issue/puzzle/challenge, not just document what's where, but look at "why it's there, and so what." Entries should be analytical in nature, map-centric rather than photo-centric or relying on too much text. Use of videos or static images generated by anyone other than the team members must be carefully documented, and such media should be used very sparingly; links to external content generally detracts in national judging. The project must emphasize student work, though using professionally generated GIS data is encouraged and does not detract from national scores. A good way to judge project balance quickly is to identify the amount of time a viewer would spend consuming the entire project; map-based time and attention should be more than half.

2. Good projects help even a viewer unfamiliar with the region know quickly the location of the project focus. Requiring a viewer to zoom out several times to determine the region of focus detracts from the viewing experience. (Pretend the viewer is from a different part of the country, or from a different country.)

3. Maps should invite interactive exploration by the viewer, not be static ("images"). The presentation should hold the attention of the viewer from start to finish.

4. Maps should demonstrate "the science of where" -- the importance of location, patterns, and relationships between layers. There is an art to map design; too much data may feel cluttered, but showing viewers too little data at a time may limit the viewers' easy grasp of relationships.

5. Care should be taken to make "pop-ups" useful, limited to just the relevant information. They should add important information and be formatted to make the most critical information easily consumable. These pop-ups can include formatted text, key links, images, data presented in charts, and so forth. Long lists of unformatted attributes generally detract, especially if they include data with meaning and relevance not immediately clear.

6. Document the project thoroughly. Show good documentation: organized and thorough.

7. See the "Project Design" section in the Resources page on the Esri website.