2023 International YOUNG Eco-Hero Award Winners 

Action For Nature is proud to announce our 2023 International Young Eco-Hero Awards, which recognize young people 8 to 16 years old for their environmental achievements. We hope the accomplishments of these outstanding young people will inspire many others to preserve and protect the Earth upon which all life depends. 

Winners are divided into two groups, ages 8-12 and ages 13-16. Please note that the ages listed below are based on each winner’s age on February 28, 2023. Download the 2023 Press Release. Download the 2023 Eco-Hero Graphics: Collage Image | Collage Image with Overlay

Age Group: 8 – 14

- DR. MARY GRIFFIN-JONES AWARD: Leo Sordello-Savale
- SHIMON SCHWARZSCHILD AWARD: Steven Hoffen
- 1st Place: Eiha Dixit
- 2nd Place: Manya Harsha
- 3rd Place: Ethan Hua
- Honorable Mention: Karnav Rastogi

Finalists

Leo Sordello-Savale
Age 8
London, United Kingdom
Leo’s Animal Planet

Eight-year-old Leo has captured a broad audience of all ages with his YouTube channel, Leo’s Animal Planet. With more than 1,100 subscribers and nearly 100,000 views, Leo’s very original and often humorous videos cover a diverse range of animals from sharks and falcons to cheetahs, dolphins, and bees.

Leo’s passion for saving animals began during the COVID-19 lockdown when boredom prompted him to watch many nature programs. He asked his parents if he could make videos so he could connect with others who also loved animals. With help from his mother, he began producing and starring in his own videos, hoping to raise awareness about protecting endangered species and saving the planet from climate change.

A compelling storyteller, Leo’s videos introduce the uniqueness of each of the animal species and express urgency about protecting them. He has an impressive command of the topics he covers, interjecting arcane facts and humor along the way, and also interviews authors and conservationists about their work. It’s not surprising that his videos are popular around the world and are even used by schools to teach children about animal conservation.

“With my YouTube channel, I want to encourage people to protect nature, wildlife, and the environment,” says Leo. “I like to have fun in my videos and use storytelling to raise awareness for endangered animals. I point out fun facts but also the dangers that the beautiful creatures in the videos are facing because of our actions as humans.”

Leo’s work has not gone unnoticed by others. He is very proud of a handwritten letter he received from his hero, David Attenborough. He received a letter from former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, congratulating Leo on becoming UK’s 1808th Point of Light, and he won the Young Animal Hero Award in 2022 from Animal Star UK, as well as the CREST Young Stem Award from the British Science Association in 2023.

youtube.com/@LeosAnimalPlanet
instagram.com/leosanimalplanet
twitter.com/LeosAnimalPlan1

Steven Hoffen
Age 14
New York, New York, USA
Growing Peace Inc.

When Steven was 11 years old, he visited an organization in Israel called Sindyanna of Galilee and was inspired by the two founders, a Jewish woman, and a Muslim woman, working together as friends to foster community peace. He started filming a documentary called “Growing Peace in the Middle East,” to raise awareness about their latest project – building hydroponics systems in the homes of Arab women.

Hydroponics avoids environmentally damaging aspects of conventional food production and solves the problem of land scarcity, which is especially extreme in Arab neighborhoods in Israel. After learning that hydroponics is also very cost-efficient and requires less physical work than regular farming, Steven created the nonprofit Growing Peace Inc. to deliver modern agricultural technology solutions to underserved communities. Specifically, Growing Peace deploys hydroponic towers that efficiently grow a range of leafy greens and herbs such as Allstar lettuce mix, butterhead lettuce, kale, bok choy, collard greens, cilantro, basil, and mint.

Steven has developed, installed, and brought online four hydroponic systems – one at a food pantry for Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers in Tel Aviv, and three in New York City – at Dr. Topeka Sam's The Ladies of Hope Ministries (LOHM), a facility to help reintegrate formerly incarcerated women of color, at the YM/YHWA of Washington Heights which provides fresh produce for low-income and disabled seniors, and at the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (which services up to 30,000 people) for their food pantry. The Tel Aviv hydroponics system feeds up to 600 families twice a month with over 2,100 servings of fresh food (25,200 servings per year), and the New York City towers produce up to 1,800 pounds of yearly produce and over 6,300 servings per year. Combined, Growing Peace’s hydroponic gardens produce over 31,500 servings per year to asylum seekers, formerly incarcerated women of color, and low-income/disabled seniors.

Steven’s latest project, with the support of Dr. Topeka, is to work with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to install a hydroponics system at a minimum security prison for women, using federal funding. If successful, the Bureau will consider rolling out a hydroponics program at other facilities over the next few years. He is also working with United Jewish Appeal to set up more hydroponic gardens in the Bronx.

“I feel that hydroponics is something that can make a real difference in people’s lives in an authentic, tangible way,” says Steven. “It allows people to have fresh produce, gain financially by selling the surplus food, feel proud, and also profit from their efforts.”

growingpeaceinc.org

Eiha Dixit
Age 9
Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India
Green Eiha Smile Foundation

If you were to visit Eiha’s home, you would find it filled with seeds, saplings, and plants. Since the age of four, she has been growing saplings to protect the environment. She began her project alone, but when she found that other children wanted to join in, she founded the Green Eiha Smile Foundation. For 275 Sundays (till 15 Aug 2023), the group has planted and cared for more than 20,000 saplings, many of which have become trees, creating mini forests, parks, and green belts and providing shade and cleaner air in the Indian city where Eiha lives. The saplings are planted through the pot method which reduces water irrigation by up to 80 percent and promotes growth rate.

Eiha and her group also make seed balls out of seeds from fruits which they mix with compost, soil, and cocopeat. Once dried, the seed balls are thrown into forests and vacant lands in the rainy season to sprout and grow.

In addition, Eiha has established a plant bank at her home, using plants donated by people who can no longer care for them. They are used to obtain cuttings and seeds, and other people may take plants free of charge. Eiha collects single-use plastic bottles and makes them into plant holders.

“There is a saying in India that many of the diseases can be cured through kitchen and garden,” explains Eiha. With this in mind, she and her family have planted medicinal gardens in schools. The plants are grown from cuttings, so no funding is needed, and Eiha’s group promotes water conservation programs in schools as well.

Eiha has much to be proud of. She was a keynote speaker at the World Peace Summit 2022 by United Nations and won the Prime Minister National Child Award 2019 and the Water Hero Award given by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India. She is also a brand ambassador of Mission100CroreTree and Clean India, Green India.

“We should beautify the earth while we are alive by increasing greenery,” says Eiha. “That’s why I want to plant trees till my last breath.”

facebook.com/eiha.dixit
facebook.com/treegirleihadixit
instagram.com/eihadixit

Manya Harsha
Age 12
Bangalore, India
Youth for Climate Action

Manya’s parents love to travel. Accompanying them, she developed an early love for nature. Her experiences were both positive and negative. She observed the lush green trees, chirping birds, and blue waters which inspired her to become a poet and writer. She also saw polluted lakes, drought, heat waves, famine, floods, and the long queue for drinking water in the countryside, which made her realize the importance of Climate Action.

Now almost 13 years of age, Manya is a poet and an author of seven environmental books and a blog, as well as producing a YouTube channel called The Little Environmentalist. Since 2020, she has written and distributed a monthly magazine for youth called SUNSHINE, with a goal of bringing youth into climate action and climate literacy. She wants to spread the word: “Don’t wait for a superhero to lead the march. Be one!”

Manya spends much of her time outside of school on environmental activities including walkathons, planting saplings, distributing seed balls, donating cloth bags (made out of her grandmother’s discarded saris), and organizing clean-up drives. She presents climate change seminars to preschool students because she believes kids should become aware of climate issues and solutions from a very early age. She talks to shopkeepers and fellow students about the need to recycle. She also has learned to make recycled vegetable peels into writing paper as a way to save trees from being chopped down. To date, she has distributed over 5,000 sustainable bags, planted 3,500 saplings, thrown nearly 3,000 seed bombs, and aspires to plant 5,000 saplings each year.

Despite all her activities, Manya declares she has a lot more to do. She says, humbly, “I do only small things.” She is interested in the welfare of the earth and protecting it for future generations and discovering how to contribute. “Our ancestors left behind a green clean earth,” says Manya. “Now it’s in our hands to recreate a better future for the coming generation.”

thelittleenvironmentalistmanyaharsha.com

Ethan Hua
Age 14
San Mateo, California, USA
H.O.P.E. – Help Our Planet Earth Uniforms Program

Throughout elementary and middle school, Ethan attended public schools where student uniforms were required. He believed that school uniforms offered many virtues: enhancing school pride, unity, and community spirit while keeping students focused on their education, not their clothes. Over the years, Ethan noticed that the uniforms he outgrew were destined for the landfills even though they were still in great condition, which added up to a meaningful amount of money spent and textiles wasted. At the same time, he noticed that some of his schoolmates were wearing uniforms that didn’t fit properly or that weren't appropriate for the season.

After learning that 22 million tons of textile waste are contributed to landfills annually and that every single article of clothing takes 25 to 45 years to decompose while releasing greenhouse gasses like methane into the atmosphere, Ethan launched the HOPE (Help Our Planet Earth) Uniforms Program in 2019. By partnering with schools in the community, HOPE collects gently used school uniforms and distributes them to students who need them. Then, when they outgrow those uniforms, they can donate the uniforms back and simply request the next size up, thereby creating an eco-friendly cycle.

During the COVID pandemic shelter-in-place, Ethan made HOPE more accessible by building a website in three languages (English, Spanish, and Chinese) where families can place online orders. When students returned to in-person learning after almost two years, there was even greater demand from students who outgrew their uniforms during distance learning.

To date, HOPE has been implemented at five public schools in the San Mateo-Foster City School District, as well as Hoover Community School in Foster City. Since its inception, HOPE has received 4,700 donated clothing articles and provided free uniforms to more than 550 families. HOPE has received awards from Crystal Geyser, Sustainability San Mateo County, US Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, and Diego Ochoa, superintendent of the San Mateo-Foster City School District.

Ocho says, “Ethan Hua is definitely a student who stands out through his approach to strategy, being environmentally conscious, and persistent in his continued efforts to expand his reach to make our community more sustainable.”

hopeuniformsprogram.com

Karnav Rastogi
Age 13
Andheri West, Mumbai, India
Each One, Read One to Plant One

As an author and a poet, Karnav Rastogi’s writing has always been inspired by nature. Over the past eight years, he has published four paperbacks and three e-comics. When he decided to take the Tide Turner Plastic Challenge, a new movement of young people around the world who take action to reduce plastic waste in their lives, he learned about how to reduce his carbon footprint and wanted to spread the word to his friends and community.

Karnav created two freely downloadable e-books, “Kartik, Daddy & Plastic: A journey about beating plastic pollution” and “Kartik, Mixie & Monster: A Journey About Ocean Pollution,” covering different aspects of climate change along with the proposed solutions. His books were positively received by other students, friends, and even adults, and helped to motivate others to become champions of change.

When Karnav realized some children were without internet access, he began printing hard copies of his book, and distributed copies of his latest book, “Kartik, Mixie & Climate Change: It’s Now or Never” to students in different parts of India. He titled his free book distribution drive “Each One, Read One to Plant One.” The book includes a green pledge written by Karnav as well as a neem seed packet to encourage others to grow trees. Students are able to read the book and plant the neem seed, then place another seed in the book and pass the book on to the next student.

So far, Karnav has distributed 5,000 copies of his book and aims to distribute 10,000 copies by the end of this year. His book is being printed in four languages (English, Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati) and he hopes to also have them translated into Bengali and Malayalam to extend his message to the eastern and southern parts of India.

“I started my project with a strong belief that students are the biggest champions of change,” says Karnav. “They are not taught about the factors bringing about climate change, and how each one of us contributes towards it. My main goal is to create that awareness.”

youtube.com/@karnavrastogi4444

Charlotte Michaluk
Age 16
Titusville, New Jersey, USA
Water and Wetlands Education and Research

Charlotte is an avid environmental engineer and educator, designing programs and teaching about water quality and herpetology pertaining to wetlands. As a young sailor, she noticed changes to beloved marshes over the years, including the loss of native species. Charlotte learned that the global cargo ship fleet is responsible for 3% of climate change emissions and particulate pollutants, leading to roughly 7.6 million childhood asthma cases and 150,000 premature deaths annually. As a result, her engineering research is centered around making cargo ships more environmentally safe and efficient.

For example, she has developed a shark skin-inspired hull coating to reduce cargo ship biofouling. As a PADI-certified drysuit scuba diver and environmental activist, Charlotte has seen firsthand how aquatic animals, such as sharks, naturally avoid biofouling – the accumulation of plants, barnacles, algae, or other small living creatures on wet surfaces. Biofouling has many detrimental effects on the environment, including increased fuel use, carbon emissions, and invasive species transport. Scrubbing species off ship hulls can be expensive and chemicals used have been toxic and damaging to marine ecosystems. While one would think shark skin is smooth, it’s actually due to tooth-like structures called denticles that sharks are able to swim fast, evade biofouling on their bodies, and reduce the energy expended. She designed and tested a myriad of hull coatings based on several denticle variations to reduce drag and the adhesion of barnacles and other organisms.

Charlotte also has been developing the Active Vortex Scrubber Rotor, a three-in-one wind propulsion, seakeeping, and exhaust scrubbing device that focuses on improving the economic desirability of environmentally friendly cargo ship systems. This endeavor involved computational fluid dynamics, constructing and testing a physical prototype in a wave pool, and control systems mathematical modeling and simulation.

Charlotte’s organization, Acnestis By Wind, is centered around the idea of using wind power to reach shorelines that can be otherwise difficult to access and clean. Charlotte organizes beach cleanups and sails to remote nesting and breeding grounds to collect discarded rope and nets. Gathered material is repurposed for art, household items, and more.

Charlotte also teaches conservation topics to adults and children at festivals and nature centers in four states. She is an active member of the Society for Freshwater Science, has been a citizen science volunteer at The Watershed Institute since 2012, and is certified in biological and chemical water monitoring.

“I advise young people to dig deep into whatever they find interesting and compelling, then approach the area as a scientist and an engineer,” Charlotte says. “The exciting thing about this process is that it is highly collaborative, and never finished – there is no limit to the contributions one might make.”

charlottemichaluk.wixsite.com/website

Michelle Song
Age 15
Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Community for Environmental Sustainability

When Michelle Song was in the 9th grade, she became aware of the term “food insecurity,” and learned that there were food deserts within her own community. Determined to help change that, she started volunteering with Love a Sea Turtle (LAST), a nonprofit that focuses on environmental programs through youth leadership development and hands-on service learning. Under the umbrella of this group, Michelle created a new student-led initiative, called Community for Environmental Sustainability (CFES).

“As I discovered the effects of residential segregation and lack of environmental education within my district, I wanted to provide an accessible and sustainable source of fresh produce to underrepresented communities while raising awareness about the importance of our local ecosystem,” Michelle says. She realized that to make an impact, she would need help. “My ‘Aha!’ moment was discovering the need to form a collective space for everyone’s work, champion all voices, and coordinate our efforts to achieve better results for our overall mission of improving the lives of everyone on the planet.”

CFES is itself an umbrella initiative that links together several student-led programs, with the strategy to attack environmental and social justice issues on multiple fronts, using advocacy, education, and volunteer service, from community gardens and orchards to education about beekeeping and composting. Their garden/orchard production has provided more than 4,500 pounds of food donations to local feeding agencies while engaging 1,000 volunteers annually in workdays and eco-focused community events. CFES initiatives have also inspired activist movements and legislation. Encouraged to be environmental leaders, their students serve on various councils and speak at state and national conferences, expanding the reach and impact of CFES far beyond the local area.

LAST Program Coordinator Daniel Sokolovic estimates that Michelle’s youth-led programs have reached tens of thousands of youth and adults across the state, nationally, and internationally, serving as evidence of the impact she has made in her community and beyond. “The ability to coalesce the wide variety of programs under one unified organization has attracted and inspired new youth leaders and programs,” he says. “She is a doer, a change-maker, and a wonderful steward of the environment.”

loveaseaturtle.com/cfes
facebook.com/GreenvilleCommunityGarden
instagram.com/thecfes_greenville

Nirvaan Somany
Age 16
New Delhi, India
Project Jeans – Blue to Green

Nirvaan was shocked to read an article posted by the United Nations stating that 10,000 liters of water are required to make a single pair of blue jeans. This led him to research denim, as well as the fashion industry. He found that only 12% of materials used for clothing are actually recycled and that used jeans make up a sizeable portion of landfill waste, the burning of which is a major cause of air pollution in the city of New Delhi, where he lives.

As he walked around the city, Nirvaan noticed a lot of people wearing blue jeans. He also noticed people sleeping outside, on the roads under flyovers, on pavements, and at bus stops – often they slept on newspapers or under donated blankets which were not adequate protection from the harsh weather conditions.

After learning that the denim used for blue jeans is strong, durable, and a great insulator (sometimes used for insulating buildings), he persuaded his mother to make a prototype sleeping bag out of seven pairs of used and washed jeans, which he successfully tried out on his porch. Using social media, he educated people about denim and the fact that the fashion industry produces 20% of global waste, and organized drop-offs and collections of used jeans in major cities in India. These are washed, stitched by seamstresses in need of work, then distributed to the homeless through NGOs, or can be purchased and donated. Some were sent to Turkey following the devastating earthquake there. To date, he has collected 6,000 pairs of jeans and made 800 sleeping bags that are washable and easily rolled up to carry.

“I wanted to do something for the planet and the underprivileged in my own small way,” says Nirvaan. Today, when he walks around his city, he can see people benefiting from his sleeping bags.

projectjeansbluetogreen.com

Kaitlyn Culbert
Age 16
Toms River, New Jersey, USA
Honey Bee & Pollinator Health: Scientific Innovation and Outreach

In 2019, Kaitlyn learned about the desperate decline of honey bees and colony collapse disorder and wanted to help. She obtained her beekeeping certification and secured land at Jakes Branch County Park along with donations for hives, bee colonies, and beekeeping equipment, and began researching the Varroa mite, the #1 killer of honey bees.

Beginning with a laboratory study and progressing to a field study, Kaitlyn set out to find a cost-effective, environmentally friendly solution to combat Varroa mites. Concluding that continuous-release mist diffusion of thymol-based essential oils can serve as a miticide that is also safe for honey bees.

In addition to publishing her scientific findings, Kaitlyn has shared her research results at multiple conferences, including the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, Undergraduate Research and Technology Conference at MIT, and the American Junior Academy of the Sciences National Conference.

Recognizing that research should not operate in a vacuum, Kaitlyn is also actively engaging her community. She established multiple pollinator gardens including a 2,500-square-foot native plant pollinator garden near her hives with a grant from the Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation. Kaitlyn has documented her beekeeping journey on her YouTube channel, Katie’s Adventures in Beekeeping. For her efforts, she is the recipient of the 2022 New Jersey Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence and the 2023 President’s Environmental Youth Award from the Environmental Protection Agency.

As a beekeeper, bee educator, bee gardener, bee advocate, and bee researcher, it’s no accident that Kaitlyn Culbert was crowned the Honey Queen by the New Jersey Beekeepers Association in February. “My hope is to make people feel more comfortable around bees,” she says, “and engage the public to recognize the critical role bees play in our ecosystem and our society.”

youtube.com/channel/UC1VTjvnWwdJQMSHG2H18FpA
instagram.com/kt.bees
facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090439571043

Satvika Iyer
Age 16
Milpitas, California, USA
Plant-Based Nutrition & Waste Management of School Food Systems

As an 8th-grade student during the COVID-19 pandemic, Satvika Iyer was helping to hand out school lunches when she noticed that they were all wrapped in single-use plastic and filled with processed foods. Later, as a high school freshman, she was disappointed to find that the only vegetarian options at her school cafeteria were a sugar-filled PB&J Uncrustable or the pizza – if she picked off the pepperoni. Volunteering in the cafeteria, she realized that the system had failed other people too, resulting in a toxic cycle of waste and leading everyone to give up on school nutrition.

Over the last two years, Satvika has advocated for plant-based nutrition and waste management of food systems, in her school district and in the US House of Representatives, working to create a healthy and sustainable food system for all.

Working with Friends of the Earth (FOE), Factory Farming Awareness Coalition (FFAC), and her nutrition service directors in her school district, Satvika instated a permanent and culturally relevant plant-based menu with meat-free alternatives such as tofu taco crumbles, Chana Masala, Edamame Fried Rice, and salad bars.

Armed with this experience, working with youth policy leadership at FOE, she introduced provisions to the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act with the US Congress's Education and Labor Committee. She also shared testimonies and negotiated with US representatives on why an act that promoted scratch cooking, plant-based meals, and free lunch services would benefit all Americans.

Satvika was invited to the White House's Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, on September 28, 2022, where she shared her vision for a just, efficient, and sustainable food system with the members of the Biden administration. She plans to further her impact by helping other school districts implement sustainable and culturally relevant food systems and advocating for legislation to reduce food waste, whether at grocery stores or restaurants.

“School is where we learn, and school food systems are where most Americans first experience their government's policy failure,” Satvika says. “Knowing how these meals could impact my fellow students, I resolved to make the school cafeteria service for all!”

https://foe-us.medium.com/introducing-climate-friendly-and-culturally-relevant-food-to-the-school-cafeteria-lessons-from-a-cf8b2cb725db

Mannat Kaur
Age 15
New Delhi, India
Indigenous Greywater Home Treatment Plan

Mannat is a young scientist and innovator endeavoring to address two major challenges faced by communities worldwide – water scarcity and the operational carbon emissions associated with freshwater supply, treatment, and wastewater treatment. She has designed a system to collect, filter, and reuse greywater in households without any major modifications to the current home plumbing system. Greywater, which is the relatively clean water from sources such as shower, dishwashing, and laundry water can be treated and reused for non-potable uses such as flushing, mopping, irrigation, and cleaning, thus saving precious drinking water.

“There is an urgent requirement in India to reduce, recycle, and reuse potable water in whichever way possible,” explains Mannat. “So much wastewater goes down the drains in homes after which a huge quantum of energy is needed to transport the greywater to sewage treatment plants and then for treatment.”

Her invention has two components: Bilge Vessel (BV) & Scupper valve (SV). The SV fits into the floor trap of the bathroom and pumps water from the floor drain trap to the BV. BV is a three-bucket filtering system that filters the greywater so that it can be easily used for non-potable end uses. The BV unit is a compact unit that fits into a small space in the bathroom, taking space equivalent to that of a bucket only. The whole setup is intelligent and smart, low-cost, environment-friendly, modular, and scalable. Mannat is experimenting with the design to make it even more clean and sleek and is working to resolve issues that have been identified by households testing her device.

The project has an impact not only at the household level but on the whole water supply network. Mannat calculates that if 20% of homes in her city adopt her invention, thousands of liters of fresh water will be saved each day. In addition, households will see financial savings while the city will save on the operational and infrastructure costs of sewage treatment costs. Her goal is to scale up the model so that it can be used in many more homes. Mannat has given talks on the decentralization of wastewater treatment at the Global Innovation Field Trip, and has presented at the Jawaharlal Nehru University STREE conference on the Role of Women in Science and Technology for Sustainable Development, where she was the youngest presenter and acknowledged with the best presenter/idea award. She was also selected among the Top 10 finalists at the HP Girls Save the World Prize as a part of SOLV[ED] organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I want to leave a mark and make a difference in the world through my work and innovations,” says Mannat. “I have never been afraid of dreaming big for myself, setting ambitious goals and I’ll never stop doing so.”

youtube.com/@mannatkaur1146

Colin Chu
Age 15
Palo Alto, California, USA
Homeless Heroes

When Colin realized that his own school discards more than 100 meals a day, while 1 in 4 people in nearby San Francisco are food insecure, he was moved to action. Colin founded Homeless Heroes, a non-profit organization that seeks to simultaneously address environmental justice and social justice by mitigating food waste in local schools and food insecurity among the unhoused.

To achieve his goals, Colin reached out to schools, homeless shelters, and food banks in the Bay Area. He proudly reports that Homeless Heroes has delivered thousands of meals that would have gone to waste. He is gratified to see the effect on the people who benefit from receiving high-quality, nutritious food: “I’ll never forget being greeted with cheers by the homeless shelter when I delivered extra milk pints, as the shelter had not served any dairy that month!”

While the primary goal is to decrease food waste and food injustice, Colin is also educating the community about homelessness by publishing interviews he conducts with homeless people and capturing their life stories on film. He has received grants from the Joey Kovacevich Social Innovation Fellowship, San Mateo County’s Office of Sustainability, and The Experiment Digital to fund the equipment required for deliveries and interviews, with additional support from major partnering organizations including LifeMoves and The Epicurean Group.

“Colin is pursuing this project for the right reasons. He genuinely cares and believes in his mission,” says Nuntiya Smith, an advisor at The Davidson Young Scholar Ambassador Program who has been a mentor to Colin. “Homeless Heroes has become a model social impact project, providing inspiration for other students to take action.”

infohomelessheroes.editorx.io/homelessheroes

Genesis Butler
Age 16
Long Beach, California, USA
Youth Climate Save

Genesis loves animals and has been an activist since she was 6 years old, inspired by her great uncle civil rights leader Cesar Chavez. At age 10, she was horrified to realize that her favorite food, chicken nuggets, was made from an animal. She stopped eating all animal-based foods and decided she must speak out about animal agriculture and its relation to climate change. She describes herself as an environmental and animal rights activist, a vegan, and a friend of all animals.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Genesis founded Youth Climate Save in order to stay engaged in activism during a time when attending protests wasn’t an option. Touted as the first youth-led climate movement to focus on animal agriculture, the organization now has 73 chapters in 22 countries. In addition, Genesis is one of the youngest people to ever give a TEDx talk and has been featured in the Marvel Hero Project documentary series as Vegan Superhero.

At speaking events, Genesis points out that not eating animal products will not only save animals, but it will stop much of the damage being done to the earth. For instance, it takes an estimated 2,463 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, and the amount of meat consumption is rising globally. In the USA, 80 to 90% of water resources go towards animal agriculture, and a vast amount of farmland is devoted to growing crops to feed animals. Changing to plant-based diets will reduce water consumption and the use of toxic fertilizers, free up land and contribute to a healthier environment.

“I am very proud of my work to motivate youth to be activists and to make a difference,” says Genesis. “It is so important for youth to talk about animal agriculture and what we can do to actually help our future.”

genesisforanimals.org
youtube.com/shorts/B7qVb_Jtdlc

Rahul Vijayan
Age 16
Pearland, Texas, USA
Farm to Tray

Rahul recognized that there was a problem with the quality of lunches provided in public schools, and became concerned that poor nutrition is leading to childhood obesity and other health issues that limit students’ learning potential. Because of their large populations of students, he says that many schools opt to serve only frozen meals that can be easily reheated and served, but are high in unhealthy fats and lack fresh vegetables.

To solve this problem, Rahul started a non-profit organization called Farm to Tray, which focused on bringing fresh organic produce to schools in the greater Houston area through on-site hydroponic farming. Beginning with his own school, Shadowcreek High School, he piloted a 4x6-foot hydroponic system that has provided five harvests since August 2022 and serves as a model for other schools. To date, 18 schools in the Houston area have adopted hydroponic grow kits, provided by Rahul’s program. With additional grant support from Earthforce, Civics Unplugged, and the Jane Goodall Foundation, he has expanded to additional schools in California and New York.

Rahul recently hosted the first-ever hydroponic symposium at his school, featuring speakers from NASA and the city mayor. The success of the symposium also spurred an interesting collaboration with the oncology operations of Houston Methodist Hospital, resulting in a pilot initiative where hydroponic grow kits will serve as portable healing gardens for oncology patients to provide a calming environment and combat stress.

“As the CEO and founder of Farm To Tray, Rahul has made remarkable strides in accelerating hydroponic infrastructure across the nation,” commends teacher Shannon Oliver.

“My project seeks to reimagine childhood nutrition in American public schools,” says Rahul, “one meal at a time.”

farm2tray.com

Nitya Jakka
Age 16
Naperville, Illinois, USA
Terraclu: Preventing Food Waste

A passionate young social and environmental activist, when Nitya Jakka learned about the detrimental effects of food waste she decided to switch to a plant-based diet and began working to bring awareness to the issue through social media and in-person events. As a residential high school student, she worked with campus dining providers to encourage more vegan options and implement a composting program. As she met with more employees across the food service industry, she realized that she hadn’t considered a major contributor to food waste – climate-controlled transportation and storage.

Nitya decided to tackle this issue head-on and invented Terraclu, a website and sensor system that predicts ethylene output levels of crops during climate-controlled transportation and storage and recommends temperature and humidity changes to ensure crops are delivered at the ideal ripeness while optimizing energy use.

Her Terraclu technology has three facets. Through the website, retailers, transportation companies, and farm managers can input relevant information regarding current inventory or expected crop lifetime. Second, each crop is tested at multiple temperature and humidity conditions to create a database of ethylene values that are used to predict ethylene outputs. Lastly, a temperature and humidity sensing chip, connected to a processor, is used to monitor crops as they are transported or stored.

Nitya created a prototype using a Raspberry Pi and has worked with executives at Cargill to validate Terraclu's design and ensure its features are useful and accurate. She is a Taco Bell Foundation Ambition Accelerator Prize Recipient as well as an Earth Prize scholar and is working hard to bring the Terraclu to market in 2024.

When she isn’t busy working on Terraclu, Nitya is also a Youth Chapter Leader for One Earth, One Chance, an organization that works with activists to raise awareness for issues like the reef crisis, oil spills, and hosting tree plantings and plogging events. Additionally, she guides other youth social entrepreneurs through business development and strategy.

linkedin.com/in/nityajakka

Anushka Godambe
Age 16
Austin, Texas, USA
Plants in Classrooms

A passionate gardener, Anushka Godambe has made it her goal to pass on her love for plants to other K-12 students by teaching them to care for a shared plant in the classroom. Inspired by the idea of a classroom pet, she started her plant initiative by creating a Gardening/Botany Club during her freshman year of high school, and with the help of other club members, distributed classroom plants to one elementary school. She selected Pothos because it is hardy and adaptable, and she is able to propagate the cuttings for the schools from her “mother plant.”

Anushka explains, “The classroom plant is intended to teach patience through the time needed for a plant to successfully grow. It involves teamwork as students work together to ensure the plant thrives by taking turns watering it and having different students take the plant home over holiday breaks. Lastly, the classroom plant encourages learning about how plants grow, how to care for them, and the benefits of plants for the environment and classroom morale.”

Three years later, Anushka has now hand-delivered more than 1,000 plants to all nine schools across the Eanes Independent School District, with plans to expand the program to other nearby districts. Plants are placed in classrooms, offices, cafeterias, and school libraries, and at some schools, Anushka has also created gardens with raised beds and protective canopies that she herself has built.

Melinda Darrow, Anushka’s Art History teacher, and sponsor for the Gardening/Botany Club, calls Anushka’s contribution extraordinary and says, “Every single classroom with a plant in it has been revitalized and improved by her efforts. Teachers, students, parents, and administrators have increased their interest in plants, gardening, and the environment as a whole, realizing that a few changes can create a tremendous, impactful difference in the lives of everyone.”

https://sites.google.com/view/plants-in-classrooms-anushkag/home