The theme of the 2017 Minnesota Map Competition was “My Minnesota Hometown on the Map”, and middle and high school students were encouraged to create an online map of an interesting or important aspect of their hometown. Two of Gina Hollinday’s students, Alyssa Isaacson and Keeli Gustafson, finished first and second respectively in the Minnesota contest, with a third Denfeld student, Nelson Wennberg, receiving an honorable mention. Isaacson created map highlighting the Iron Range of Minnesota, Gustafson created a map of Morgan Park, Minnesota, while Wennberg's map highlighted the 2012 flooding in Duluth.
The top five maps at the high school and middle school level were then submitted to the 2017 ESRI National ArcGIS Online Map Competition, where Alyssa Issacson’s map on Minnesota’s Iron Range Mines won first place. Alyssa and Gina were honored at the 2017 ESRI User Conference in San Diego, California.
ArcGIS Online, the technology used to create the maps, is made available free of charge to all K-12 schools nationwide through ESRI to promote geographic and geospatial education.