Anthony Nguyen won a state-wide competition for a GIS map he created about heart disease in Nebraska, a disease that has impacted his family. He and his teacher, Shiela Sievert presented on the project at the statewide Nebraska GIS Symposium earlier this month. Nguyen will be competing nationally through the ArcGIS story map competition. GIS is an acronym for Geographic Information Systems and that it was an assignment in his AP Human Geography Class. The entire class had to create story maps using the GIS technology to research an issue about Nebraska which included sharing statistics, pictures and mapping to tell a story.

In a video that you can watch online, Nguyen said, “I’m actually really glad that I entered myself into the competition because it really allowed me to immerse myself into a new language, which I refer to as the art of mapmaking. And it was really cool to see all the connections and patterns between different factors, like, I chose heart disease, so it was really cool to see how diet, age and stress and how all those things are related to heart disease.”