This week, 21-year-old Sho Yano will complete the journey he began as a 9-year-old college freshman, becoming one of the youngest students in history to receive an M.D. He earned his PhD at age 19 and will now launch a medical career as a pediatric neurologist so he can work with children. (Video)
A North Carolina teen returned from camp last summer and discovered her parents had abandoned her. But dedicated to her goal of an education, she took a job, went to live with a friend, and kept her grades high, despite bullying and poverty, to earn a scholarship to Harvard.
A dream 17 years-in-the-making came true for a California boy when he got out of his wheelchair and walked to accept his high school diploma. Patrick Ivison, a senior at Scripps High School in San Diego, was just 14-months-old when he was run over by a stranger's car, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
For the past two months, one of my favorite reads has been a blog started by 9-year-old Martha Payne of western Scotland to document in photos the daily lunches she was being served in her public primary school. Payne started blogging in early May and her lunch photos went viral in days. She had a million viewers within a few weeks; was written up in Time, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail; and got support from TV chef Jamie Oliver, whose series "Jamie's School Dinners" kicked off school-food reform in England.
Martha Payne, the nine-year-old schoolgirl who blogged about her school lunches and was briefly banned from photographing them, has not only achieved more healthy lunches for her Scotland school, she is helping to provide lunches to thousands of school kids in Africa.
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs changed the way we live. All had one thing in common: Access to technology at an early age. A DC-based nonprofit called CodeNow is teaching underrepresented youth the fundamental skills of computer programming. While taking free courses, the city kids -- almost 40% are girls -- build robots, Twitter apps, and a better future.
Two years ago, Regan Kerr turned her small collection of pop tabs from the top of soda cans into an endeavor involving family and friends that culminated at her prom Saturday night. The Aurora, Colorado teen hand-made a dress that took 5,114 pop tabs and five solid months of sewing. The result is an amazing tailored silver frock with flared skirt and colored pop-top trim.
Scott Shaver and Katie Buell were crowned prom king and queen last week at Westview High School. Katie is an all-American girl, class president, champion in girls basketball, and an absolute sweetheart, according to her teachers. Yet, it seems every student, no matter their ability, is accepted here and treasured. Scotty, as the kids call him, is a HUGE personality at the school, brought out of his shell over four years by the nurturing attention given, not only by specialized staff who have tutored him as a special needs student with autism, but by the accepting student body.
There has been a breakthrough in the fight against pancreatic cancer, and it's all thanks to a 15-year-old Maryland County teen and his mom, who drove him to Johns Hopkins University every night after school to test his theory in a lab. Jack Andraka won a $75,000 grand prize in this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his new way to test for early-stage pancreatic cancer. The test also detects ovarian and lung cancer.
Inspired by a man who traded a red paper clip to get a house using Craig's List, Brendan Haas hatched a scheme to earn a trip to Disney World. But instead of vacationing himself, the Massachusetts boy gave the all-expenses paid trip to the family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan. It only took four months of trading, beginning with Brendan offering his toy soldier on a webpage.
For the third consecutive year, 100 percent of the graduating seniors from the Urban Prep Academy, the nation's first all-boys public charter high school, have accomplished what some thought impossible - every single one of these 85 students has been accepted to a four-year college or university.
Brain science is being used in planning school lessons for 200 students in kindergarten through third grade at the the progressive Blue School in New York. The school has become a kind of national laboratory for integrating cognitive neuroscience and cutting-edge educational theory into curriculum, professional development and school design.
7-year-old Annie Clark has just won a national handwriting award, even though she has no hands. The Pennsylvania first-grader was born without hands but took home the trophy and $1,000.
A 17 year-old Michigan teen won the top award and $100,000 in the Intel Science Talent Search for his research on breast cancer, which could lead to more direct, targeted, and less toxic treatments.
Since Boston Magazine published an article naming Lawrence, Massachusetts the City of the Dammed" and calling the residents godforsaken, an outraged community has been working to prove there are more positive things in the city than the label Nation's Stolen Car Capital would suggest. Taking matters into their own hands, a group of high school students have printed five issues of a newsletter, called What's Good In the Hood?, hand-delivering the positive news stories around town.
Who says science can't be fun? At the second annual White House Science Fair last week, President Obama got the chance to shoot a marshmallow across the State Dining Room using 14-year-old inventor Joey Hudy's "Extreme Marshmallow Cannon." (Video)
A marine biology student at a NY high school learned she was named a finalist for the $100K Intel Science prize just days after her family moved into a homeless shelter.
Jake Barnett, an Indianapolis 13-year-old, has been acing college math and science courses since he was eight years old. At 13, he is a college sophomore taking honors classes in math and physics, while also doing scientific research and tutoring fellow students.
In three years, Rachel Wheeler raised more than $250,000, which helped build brand new earthquake-proof homes that have given shelter to 27 families that were still living in tent cities after Haiti's earthquake.
A grieving mother has paid tribute to her hero son, who died of brain cancer after raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for others with the disease.
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