{"id":437141,"date":"2026-09-16T00:04:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437141\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T00:04:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:04:48","slug":"plano-teen-wins-gloria-barron-prize-for-young-heroes-10000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437141\/","title":{"rendered":"Plano teen wins Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, $10,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tan is one of two in Texas and 15 in North America to receive the prize. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Plano teen Nathan Tan<\/a> has been named a winner of the 2026 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes<\/a> for his work addressing air pollution in Dallas.<\/p>\n

Tan, 17, founded Shared Skies Initiative<\/a>, a nonprofit focused on environmental justice and air quality in West Dallas. He developed a machine-learning model that predicts particulate matter levels in areas without air quality monitors and created a real-time map now used by about 1,000 Texans.<\/p>\n

The organization has also distributed a bilingual environmental justice primer to more than 60 low-income schools, trained 300 youth ambassadors and donated 50 student-built air filters and 10,000 KN95 masks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tan\u2019s work was inspired in part by years spent tutoring elementary students in West Dallas, his own experience with respiratory illness and family members who died from lung cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch only makes a difference when it reaches the people it is about,\u201d Tan said. \u201cA paper in a journal won\u2019t protect a child from polluted air as he walks to school, but a bilingual booklet a mother can read will.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes annually recognizes 25 young people ages 8 to 18 from across the U.S. and Canada. Fifteen winners receive $10,000 to support their service work or higher education. Tan is one of two Texas recipients this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tan is one of two in Texas and 15 in North America to receive the prize. Plano…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[151488,151489,160,162,161,151490,4278],"class_list":["post-437141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-2026-gloria-barron-prize-for-young-heroes","tag-nathan-tan","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-shared-skies-initiative","tag-west-dallas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}