Isha Clarke, 17, of Oakland, California, co-founded Youth Vs. Apocalypse, a diverse group of young ... [+]
Climate activism, environmental education, an early warning system that fights food shortages and cancer screening technology. These are just four examples of projects by kids and teens in the United States that earned them the 2020 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. The deadline for 2021 applications is coming up and organizers hope to inspire another round of entries and shine some light on the positive.
Author T.A. Barron established the prize in 2001, named after his mother. It’s open to young leaders ages 8 to 18 who have “made a significant positive difference to people and the environment,” organizers say.
Every year, 15 top winners receive $10,000 to support their service work or higher education. The other 10 are honorees.
Applications for this year’s Barron Prize are due by April 15, and winners and honorees will be announced in September.
The 2020 winners and honorees include Isha Clark, 17, of Oakland, California, who co-founded a diverse group of young climate activists called Youth Vs. Apocalypse (YVA).
The group works to lift the voices of youth–in particular, youth of color–in the fight for a livable climate and equitable world, according to Barron Prize organizers.
YVA organized and led the first Bay Area Youth Climate Strike in March 2019, when thousands of protestors marched and chanted in the streets. Clarke gained fame through a now-viral February 2019 encounter in which she urged Senator Dianne Feinstein to support the Green New Deal.
Bill Tong, 18, of Columbia, Maryland, founded the Bioma Project, an environmental education nonprofit that brings native fish aquariums into classrooms. The aquariums are stocked with 10 species of native fish and plants.
Barron Prize winner Bill Tong began his work in seventh grade, frustrated by recurring trash in his ... [+]
In four years, Tong has expanded his program to 38 schools in Maryland, the District of Columbia and California, educating nearly 2,300 students.
Students tend to the “miniature ecosystems,” learning about native wildlife and developing a sense of environmental stewardship, prize organizers say.
Lillian Petersen, 17, of Los Alamos, New Mexico, has created an early warning system using satellite imagery to predict crop yields in every African country several months before the harvest.
The idea is to give governments and aid organizations earlier warning of impending food crises and allow them to transport food and supplies to where they’re needed most. The system is unique, the Barron Prize people say, because it can predict crop yields anywhere in the world.
Petersen has “worked tirelessly” to create the system, collaborating with leading satellite experts and writing thousands of lines of code. The effort began several years ago after she heard about multiple crop failures in Ethiopia,
She also won a $250,000, first-place award in the Regeneron Science Talent Search last year; see the video below.
Other impressive Barron Prize winners include Viraj Mehta, 17, of Scottsdale, Arizona, for developing technologies for the prevention, early detection and treatment of cancers.
Mehta’s projects make use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in an effort to increase survival rates. He began his work four years ago after losing his grandfather to cancer diagnosed at a late stage.
He created an organization called OncoVision to help people in underserved areas screen themselves for cancer and has conducted workshops in India, Malaysia and Poland. An OncoVision smartphone app can reportedly predict a person’s percentage risk of eight different cancer types with 97% accuracy.
Viraj Mehta established Precision Medicine Initiatives to explore cancer-fighting technologies.
These highlights only scratch the surface of what’s going on in the world of young environmental heroes. The Barron Prize turned 20 in 2020 and is supported by organizations including the National Geographic Education Foundation, Girl Scouts of the USA and National Youth Leadership Council.
You can read more about the 2020 winners at the Barron Prize website. The deadline to apply for 2021, again, is April 15.
