Each year, GIS Day produces a number of student entries, some more serious-minded than others. This year’s entries and winners were no exception. Matt tackled inequality and gerrymandered school districts in Gwinnett County, while Lucy mapped a Baby Driver-inspired heist plan of Washington DC.

“I began to put together this map after watching the movie Baby Driver,” Lucy explained. “That day, when I browsed through potential GIS data sets, I found one with all the bank locations in Washington D.C. and the thought clicked. The idea for the map was set as a heist scenario.”

For Matt, there was a larger problem to understand. “Anecdotal evidence suggested that school districts in Gwinnett County, Georgia, seem to be “gerrymandered” to include or exclude certain areas based on housing type/density and thus income and race, a pattern that may help perpetuate socioeconomic inequality,” Matt explained. That larger problem required a much more complicated methodology. “I'd say the main difficulty in this project was that I had data on a variety of indicators at the census block group or tract level, and I wanted to map those same indicators by school zone, so I had to figure out how to transfer them to a different geographical unit.”

At the end of the day, both students produced great work.