When Valeria Corrales was 10 years old, she made a decision that would shape science education in the Spanish-speaking world. Working alongside mentor Patricia Heredia, she co-founded ValPat, an educational platform designed to make science, coding and technology accessible to young people. Today, the platform reaches 240,000 YouTube subscribers across Spain and Latin America through over 750 educational videos.
Three thousand miles away, Aneeshwar Kunchala began his own journey at age 4 after learning that a whale had died from plastic pollution. He decided to dedicate himself to animal conservation and environmental education. He is now 11.
Both young people represent an increasingly rare phenomenon in education systems and civic institutions: evidence that age is not a barrier to meaningful contribution. At this week's STARMUS VIII conference on Spain's Canary Islands, Corrales received the Junior Stephen Hawking Medal for democratizing STEM education, while Kunchala received the Junior Jane Goodall Earth Medal for his conservation advocacy and environmental communications with young audiences.
The awards signal a broader shift: educational innovation and environmental stewardship don't require waiting for adulthood, institutional credentials or top-down permission structures.
Corrales's work took on urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic. When lockdowns shuttered schools across Spain and Latin America, she and Heredia offered free STEM instruction online for 100 consecutive days. Thousands of students continued learning during isolation.
Corrales didn't wait for curriculum redesign or government grants. She identified a gap and built a tool to address it immediately. She's now studying computational media at Georgia Tech. Forbes Spain recognized her as one of 23 "Changemakers" in 2023, and she was a finalist for the Global Student Prize, competing against nearly 11,000 nominees from 148 countries.
Kunchala's work demonstrates that environmental education and conservation advocacy don't require expert status. His early childhood experience with ocean plastic's impact on marine life became the driving force behind work that reaches millions through BBC documentaries, Sky Kids programming and his role as the first young columnist for National Geographic Kids UK.
At 11, he holds three Guinness World Records, serves as a youth ambassador for the National Trust and has been honored with the Diana Award and the British Citizen Youth Award. His message is simple: "Save the animals and keep the world beautiful." That clarity may be why his work resonates with younger audiences. He speaks their language because he is their peer.
Both young people point toward an uncomfortable truth about current educational and civic systems: they systematically underutilize the problem-solving capacity, energy and insights of young people.
Corrales and Kunchala identified genuine problems and built responses that now operate at scale. They didn't need permission from institutions. They needed platform, support and freedom to act.
Education reform conversations often focus on curriculum standards, testing or funding formulas. But Corrales's work suggests investing in the capacity of young people themselves to teach and create educational tools. Similarly, environmental education typically flows downward from experts. Kunchala's model reverses that: a young person speaking to peers about why he cares.
These two don't represent isolated success stories. Both had mentorship, platform access and freedom from the assumption that youth involvement must be tokenistic.
The question for educators, policymakers and institutions isn't whether young people can lead meaningful work in education and environmental justice. Corrales and Kunchala have answered that. The question is why systems don't expect, resource and scale it as a norm rather than celebrating exceptional cases.
STARMUS VIII runs through Oct. 22 on Tenerife and La Palma under the theme "The Search for Truth." The recognition of these two young changemakers within that convening carries symbolic weight: the future of these fields will be shaped by people young enough to ask whether things must stay as they are and brave enough to build alternatives.
