SEES Undergraduate student wins ESRI Story Map competition

Three McMaster students enrolled in ENVSOCTY 4GT3 – Web GIS in the Fall 2025 term with instructor Pat Deluca learned how to create story maps as one of the apps in the course. Several went on to submit them in the 2025 ArcGIS Story Maps Competition with ESRI. Three went on to be finalists!

McMaster Finalists

• From the Environment category, Ravyn Veenstra (Honours Environment & Society, and pursuing the GIS Certificate) submitted a story about The Migration of Humpback Whales
• From the People category, Abeer Farhan (Honours Biodiversity & Environmental Sciences, and pursuing GIS Certificate) submitted a story about An Introduction to Research in Nunavut
• And lastly, also from the People category, Easton McGillicuddy (Honours Anthropology, and pursuing GIS Certificate) submitted a story about When the rot sets in…

Esri announced the 2025 ArcGIS Story Maps Competition finalists on February 10th. Voting was open from February 10th to March 10th.

And in April, Esri officially announced that student, Ravyn Veenstra won for her submission in the Environment category on The Migration of Humpback Whales!

Congratulations Ravyn!