Adair-Casey/Guthrie Center High School’s first student to ever compete as a finalist at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair received an award to help further her research.

Junior Hailey Kintz attended Intel ISEF with freshman Alyssa Byars who qualified as an observer, as well as teacher Alexa Groff from May 12-17 in Phoenix, Arizona. Kintz presented her plastics project titled “Biodegradable Backlash” to several doctoral-level scientists and received an award from Wolfram Research, Incorporated, which will give her a year’s worth of research software to advance her project to produce biodegradable hay bale wrap materials.

More important than awards for Kintz was getting to meet people from around the world, and she shares her favorite moment from the trip, “Every team, so from different states and countries you bring pins and you trade them with people from all over the world and you get to meet them and see where they’re from and talk about your backgrounds, and that was just something that I found (to be) super awesome.”

Kintz says she collected around 150 pins from other students. This was the fifth science fair she attended this school year, and she has already qualified to attend a science fair in Seattle, Washington next year.