As you make your way through school, you’ll learn from several teachers in the process. However, some of them will leave lasting impressions in your mind that will stick for years to come.

These 5 teachers have received recognition in the news for their positive impacts:

David Menasche: After receiving the traumatic news that he had developed untreatable brain cancer, this English teacher didn’t let his disappointing diagnosis get the best of him. When he was too weak to continue teaching, the brave educator from Florida set off on a journey to 31 cities across the country to reunite with 75 of his former students. They described him as a beloved teacher who made a tremendous effort to be present in the lives of his students.

Cheryl Tolbert: As a dedicated middle school music teacher, Cheryl has been touching the lives of her students for 46 years. For the past 9 years of her career, she has been guiding some of the most troublesome students at Crawford Middle School in Kentucky. With her strict, disciplinary teaching style, Cheryl has taught these kids how to succeed and achieve their goals. Most importantly, she has shown her students that music can help you get through the tough times in life.

Anne White: This high school Spanish teacher from Wisconsin uses highly creative strategies to keep her students engaged and ensure that they never forget the language. She spices up her teaching routines by adding in a few fun and unique activities, ranging from Spanish lip-sync battles to Latino line dancing sessions. Anne also likes to send her students on special academic trips that enable them to study abroad and embrace the Spanish culture. Many of her former students still keep in touch via email and Facebook, and some even stop by to visit on occasion.

Derrick Griffith: This 42-year-old educator from New York managed to make a lasting impact on all of his students before he was killed in the recent Amtrak train accident in Philadelphia. He devoted much of his career to assisting underprivileged students in inner-city schools. With the help of a few colleagues, he founded the Teaching and Learning Institute at East High School in Rochester. He is remembered as an extremely caring teacher and dedicated mentor.

Jennifer Brown: This applied physical science teacher was named Alabama’s Teacher of the Year for 2015-16. After teaching her 10^th grade students for 16 years, she realized the true impact that teachers have on shaping future generations. Jennifer helps her students excel by making them active participants in the classroom. She wants to inspire other teachers to follow this trend.

Contributed by Nedda Grady

“If you want to do something, do it as soon as possible.” -Boyan Slat

The Dutch born Boyan Slat doesn’t just say inspiration quotes, he lives them. At age 13, Slat set the Guinness World Record for most water rockets launched at the same time. From there, his ambition took off like one of those rockets leading him to become the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup project by age 20.

Slat’s journey to becoming the founder of one of the largest clean-up projects in history began while diving in Greece at the age of 16. He noticed there were more plastic bags than fish in the ocean, which gave him an idea. Slat developed a science project that consisted of several floating barriers, connected to the seabed, that could capture and gather plastics littering the ocean surface, so they could be collected and recycled. The design uses the Ocean currents to do all of the dirty work, as they push the litter into the collection barriers, a task that would take humans thousands of years and billions of dollars. Seeing that the project had something special to it, Delft University of Technology awarded it with the Best Technical Design.

Slat continued to develop his project after the competition, eventually giving a Ted Talk on how it could work. The talk resonated with people around the world, going viral in the process. Slat started a Kickstarter campaign to make the project a reality, which easily reach it’s goal. Now two years later, Slat has a team of over 100 people working on implementing the project while also spinning the technology off to work on cleaning up rivers and streams as well. According to a 2014 study, the system could remove up to half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 10 years.

Boyan Slat didn’t let his age get in the way of his big idea. Because of his decision to not delay, and pursue his vision and passion as soon as possible, the world could become a better pace to live in a shorter amount of time. Who knows what kind of good could be done if more teens followed Slat’s example and listened to his words: ”If you want to do something, do it as soon as possible.”

Contributed by Alex Anderson