Science News
Sayville RISE Students Shine at ESRI’s International GIS User Conference Held in San Diego, California
By Kaitlin Weber, Senior at Sayville High School
This past summer, from July 8th to the 14th, four Sayville students participated in the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California. This annual conference, held by Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute), features student-generated posters from all over the world that include research projects featuring the use of GIS. GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, is a mapping technology that allows users to create a variety of maps, in this case based off of the students’ collected data as a platform for visualization and analytics.
These four students’ posters were presented at the Map Gallery where 17,000 attendees, comprised of private industry, government, academia, and non-governmental organizations from 160 countries, viewed and voted on the posters for a “People’s Choice Award”. The four students whose posters were displayed are: Caitlin Gormley, Senior 2017, with her project Physical Risk Analysis and Potential Health Outcomes from Hydrofracturing Activities Using Geospatial Analytics in the Marcellus Shale, USA; Amelia Flaumenhaft, Junior 2017, with her project Geospatial Analysis of Food Insecurity and Academic Achievement in Suffolk County, New York; Bettina Bonfiglio, Sophomore 2017, with her project A Comparative Analysis of Preterm Birth Rates in the United States Related to Demographics and Environmental Quality; and Sohum Sheth, Sophomore 2017, with his project Geospatial Analysis of the Distribution of Sea Turtles and Sharks off of the Coast of Long Island, New York. Sohum Sheth received the First Place Award in the High School Map Category, Caitlin Gormley received the Third Place Award in the High School Map category. Sohum, Amelia, and Bettina’s maps are being considered for publication in the Esri Map Book which will be distributed to all attendees at the 2018 Conference! These students will also receive 4 credits from Stony Brook University as they have completed GSS313/314 Introduction to GIS:Planning & Design I through the Accelerated College Education Program (ACE).
Students from Sayville High School have received the First Place award for the past three years at the high school level (Sohum Sheth, Caitlin Gormley, and Emily Faughnan), and in 2016 also received First and Second Place at the Elementary School Level (Samantha Hmelovsky and Adam Burghardt, respectively). Congratulations to these young Geospatial Analysts!