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All over the planet, kids and teens are finding creative ways to help other people and the environment. The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes highlights a few notable examples by honoring 25 young people in North America who are making the world a better place. The top 15 honorees each win $10,000, which they can put toward their service work or a college education.

Here are a few of this year’s inspiring winners.

Unlike some of its neighbors in the solar system, Earth has just one moon. But for a brief time, our planet is also being orbited by an asteroid that scientists are calling a mini-moon.

The asteroid, which is named 2024 PT5, entered Earth’s orbit in late September after being captured by our planet’s gravity. It’s expected to remain until November 25, for a total stay of about 56 days. At 33 feet (10 meters) long, 2024 PT5 is about the size of a school bus, and scientists say there’s no danger it will collide with Earth.

But will 2024 PT5 give the Moon a run for its money? Not really, scientists say. Most people won’t be able to see it in our sky. 

“The object is too small and dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars,” astronomer Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told Space.com. Marcos co-wrote a study about the asteroid. “However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers.” 

2024 PT5 won’t even be around long enough to complete a full orbit around Earth. Eventually, it will go back out into space and join an asteroid belt that’s orbiting the Sun.

Scientists say “mini-moon events” aren’t too unusual. In February 2020, scientists detected another asteroid that had begun to orbit Earth in 2017. It remained in orbit for more than a year after it was spotted. That was what scientists called a “long mini-moon episode.” Unlike long episodes, which occur only every 10 or 20 years, short episodes (like 2024 PT5’s visit) happen several times each decade.

Cats are natural-born hunters, but not all cats actually hunt. A new study shows that whether a cat hunts or not depends partly on its personality.

The ability to hunt is part of a cat’s instinct, meaning cats are born knowing how to hunt. Many cats will hunt even if they’re well fed by humans—so hunger isn’t always related to why a cat goes looking for prey. This made a team of scientists wonder why some cats don’t hunt.

In the study, which took place in France, scientists surveyed 2,508 people whose cats spend at least part of the time outside. The scientists found that only some of these cats brought prey home regularly. The difference between the cats that hunted and the cats that didn’t hunt had nothing to do with age or gender. Instead, it was related to the cats’ personalities. Cats that were more curious, adventurous, or dominant (bold and aggressive) were more likely to be hunters. Cats that were friendlier or shyer were less likely to be hunters.

The scientists also found that cats that spent more time outdoors were more likely to hunt. Also, cats living in rural or suburban areas were more likely to hunt than cats living in cities.

Cat owners know that different cats have different personalities. But scientists only recently considered the idea that a cat’s personality might be related to whether it hunted or not.

“[This study] is super interesting because we’re in an age where we’re spending a lot more time studying cats and cat personalities, and kind of finding all the nuances to the behavior,” cat behaviorist Wailani Sung told USA Today. Sung helped make the 2022 Netflix documentary Inside the Mind of a Cat.

Two high school students made headlines when they solved a math problem that’s stumped many mathematicians. Their feat even caught the attention of former NBA superstar Charles Barkley, who pledged a million dollars to the school the students attended.

In 2022, Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson were seniors at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, Louisiana, when they entered a schoolwide math contest related to the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem says that the sum of the squared lengths of the two shorter sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the length of the longer side. So if you know the lengths of two sides of a right triangle, you can use the theorem to figure out the length of the third side. Here’s how the equation is written:

Wolves once roamed around England, unknowingly spreading wildflower and grass seeds that stuck to their fur and paws and fell off miles away. This seed-spreading was important for England’s biodiversity. But since wolves are long gone from that part of the world, their canine cousins—dogs—are pitching in.  

In a town called Lewes, people are putting seed-filled backpacks on their dogs before heading to the Railway Land Nature Reserve. The backpacks are full of holes, so the dogs spread the seeds as they roam freely around the reserve with their humans close by. Project manager Dylan Walker says the dogs walk four times the distance humans do and often squeeze into places where humans don’t go. 

Wolves once unknowingly did this work, often roaming 12 miles (20 kilometers) every night. But wolves became extinct in Britain in the 1700s.

“I signed up [for the project] because it sounded like such a good fit,” dog owner Cressida Murray told the Guardian. “I was asked to place a harness on my chocolate cocker spaniel called Bertie, and he ran around spreading seeds like wolves used to do many years ago.”

Walker got the idea for the project after hearing about a similar project that took place in Chile in 2019. After fires destroyed many acres of forest and drove many animals out, two women tied seed-filled satchels to their three dogs and let them run around the area. Even though the dogs had no idea what they were doing, their work helped turn some charred land green again.

In England, the dogs’ work is paying off, Walker says.

“We’ve already started to see seed germination in some areas, but most of the seeds that have been distributed by the dogs are perennials, which take a couple of years to establish and flower, so hopefully next year we’ll see some clearer results,” he told the Guardian.

Tens of thousands of species are endangered, and that number is growing. So scientists have come up with a way to make sure animal species aren’t lost forever: they want to safeguard animals’ cellular material by storing it on the Moon.

A team of researchers suggest putting frozen cells from many animal species in an enclosure and placing it on the frigid far side of the Moon (the side not facing Earth), where the cells would remain frozen. Freezing the materials is a way to preserve them.

“The purpose is really to create a biorepository to ensure long-term safeguarding of species from extinction,” John Bischof, an engineer from the University of Minnesota, told Minnesota Public Radio. “This is a way of actually putting away really important genetic material in a place where it will be safe for, potentially, generations.”

The cells could be used to improve genetic diversity in species with very small populations. They could even be used to clone animals.

Scientists say the Moon could be a better storage place than Earth, where climate change is causing temperatures to rise. Already, the country of Norway is home to the Global Seed Vault, where more than one million seed samples from around the world are stored under permafrost to keep them cold. In 2017, the vault was flooded due to melting permafrost. Luckily, no seeds were affected by the flood.

“If there had not been people there, flooding could have damaged the [seed] biorepository,” scientist Mary Hagedorn told the Guardian. Hagedorn was lead author of the study that described the animal cell biorepository.

As they considered storing animal cells, scientists concluded that Earth would be an unreliable location. They decided to look elsewhere. The Moon has a very thin atmosphere, which means there’s no threat of climate change there. Still, the Moon is exposed to solar radiation that can destroy cells. Scientists will need to build a repository that protects the cells from damage.

Hagedorn says we’re nowhere near the point where a biorepository would be built and maintained on the Moon. But there are plans for increased travel to the Moon and maybe even the construction of a base camp there. For now, Hagedorn and her team have outlined a possible plan.

“We know how to do this and can do this and will do this, but it may take decades to finally achieve,” she told the Guardian.

Amazingly, it’s possible to construct a building by using a 3D printer to create its floors, walls, and more. There’s a problem, though. Ingredient number one is usually cement or something similar, which is strong but not environmentally friendly. Now, a company in Tanzania is planning to construct a village community center with a 3D printer that uses earth.

Located in the city of Kibaha, Hope Village will be a sanctuary for children who come from difficult or unsafe environments. The village will have a place for children to sleep, as well as farmland, a place for livestock, and places where children can play. The village community center will house a school and a cafeteria and will also serve as a gathering place for local residents. Hope Village is being designed by architecture firms called Hassell and ClarkeHopkinsClarke and sponsored by a charity called One Heart.

When Ron Davis Alvarez was a kid in Venezuela, he joined El Sistema, a program that trains children from low-income communities in classical music. The program changed the direction of Alvarez’s life. By 14, he was teaching the violin to others. By 16, he was conducting orchestras. Now 38, Alvarez runs his own El Sistema program called the Dream Orchestra.

Located in Gothenburg, Sweden, the Dream Orchestra is open to people of all ages and musical abilities. Refugees, immigrants, young people who lack opportunities, and anyone else is welcome to join. Alvarez says the orchestra isn’t just a group of musicians but a community—a place where people of many backgrounds can gather and share a common experience.

Alvarez began working for El Sistema after studying conducting in college, and the program took him to jobs in many parts of the world. In 2015, he was visiting Sweden when he noticed refugees and immigrants at a train station.

“They were, like, completely lost,” he told CNN. “I was just thinking, ‘What are they gonna do?’ Everything was really dark. And I [could] see in their eyes they were looking for light.”

LEGO was once considered a toy that kids eventually outgrew. But the classic plastic bricks have become a staple for people of all ages, partly because putting them together isn’t just fun—it’s also a great stress reliever.

People have used LEGO to help ease anything from everyday stress to more serious conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is often diagnosed in military veterans. Experts think LEGO might have some of the same benefits as practices like meditation, which help people focus on the present instead of worrying about the past or the future. LEGO kits are challenging enough to be a distraction but not so challenging that they cause more stress. When a person builds a LEGO kit, they concentrate on this fun activity instead of thinking about what is troubling them.

And unlike some hobbies, a LEGO project is also very low risk. The kits come with precise, step-by-step instructions, but users can also experiment and build whatever they want. If a brick is put in the wrong place, it can be moved with no harm done.

“The point is to free your mind of other distractions and focus on play, even if you just have a handful of pieces,” Abbie Headon told the Washington Post in 2020. LEGO, the Danish company that makes the bricks, hired Headon to write a book about the benefits of building with LEGO. Its title is Build Yourself Happy: The Joy of LEGO Play.

With so many people reporting the benefits of LEGO, scientists are beginning to look for evidence—and finding it. In one recent study, using LEGO had a positive effect on stressed-out adults. Another study found that using LEGO can improve communication and social skills in children.