GLORIA BARRON PRIZE
12-year-old Minnesota girl inspired by Anne Frank wins $10,000 after giving out 100,000 ‘I Stand With Anne, Put a Stop to Hate’ bracelets
At just 12 years old, Natalie Flaherty from Minnesota has made headlines by winning the prestigious Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes in 2023. She is celebrated for her remarkable initiative of distributing over 100,000 anti-hate bracelets that advocate Holocaust remembrance. Her impactful campaign, 'I Stand with Anne, Put a Stop to Hate', has garnered international attention, reaching more than 50 countries.
Meet Nicolina Pappas, the teen who started sewing reusable straw pouches at 8, and raised over $15,000 to fight plastic pollution after 6 years
Pappas was deeply affected after seeing footage of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose. According to the Barron Prize, the experience inspired her to switch to a reusable metal straw and sew a small cloth pouch to carry it. That simple idea soon grew into something bigger: she began making and selling additional pouches, using the money she raised to support conservation efforts.
Meet Alaina Zhang, the 17-year-old Rhode Island student testing whether native seaweed can help clean polluted coastal waters
Seaweed is unlikely to provide a complete solution to the many sources of nutrient pollution affecting coastal waters. Reducing the amount of excess nitrogen entering waterways in the first place remains a crucial part of addressing the problem.
Meet Sophie Zeng, the 17-year-old California student who built an app to identify invasive plants after learning they can become overlooked wildfire fuel
Project ARISE expanded its work by organizing invasive-plant removal drives, habitat restoration efforts and environmental workshops in collaboration with park rangers and conservation groups. The organization also introduced projects to support native pollinators, including the distribution of mason bee houses.
Meet Anirudh Rao, the 12-year-old Colorado inventor who built a drone system that could increase tornado warnings from 13 minutes to 40
Predicting and warning people about tornadoes remains an exceptionally difficult scientific challenge. Tornado-producing storms can intensify quickly, background atmospheric noise can complicate the detection of acoustic signals, and even powerful rotating thunderstorms do not always generate tornadoes. Warning systems therefore face a difficult trade-off: providing as much advance notice as possible without issuing so many false alarms that warnings lose their effectiveness.
At 18, this Virginia teen helped 70 young volunteers to restore the Chesapeake Bay. They removed nearly 5,000 pounds of debris in a year
At just a teenager, James Hemphill launched a remarkable six-year environmental initiative. Co-founding Project Green Teens, he rallied numerous young volunteers to tackle pollution by removing thousands of pounds of trash from local waterways. They also contributed to the restoration of oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay, showcasing the significant influence young people can have in leading environmental change.
