17-year-old Texas student takes air-quality project to 60 schools

Technology is only one part of Tan's approach. Shared Skies created a 50-page environmental justice guide in English and Spanish and distributed it to more than 60 low-income schools, reaching approximately 30,000 students. At 17, Nathan Tan has already taken on a problem that can be difficult even for adults to see, let alone solve: the invisible pollution hanging over neighborhoods where families have spent years carrying a disproportionate share of the environmental burden. From his home in Plano, Texas, Tan has turned concern about air quality into a growing community effort that combines technology, education and grassroots action, states a report by North Texas e-News.A problem close to homeTan is the founder of Shared Skies Initiative, a nonprofit focused on environmental injustice in Dallas. His work grew out of years spent tutoring elementary school students in West Dallas, where he became increasingly aware of the area's pollution problems. His own experience with respiratory illness and the loss of family members to lung cancer also gave the issue a deeply personal dimension.A student's question about why the sky looked so hazy prompted Tan to dig deeper. He found that c...