A West Central Valley High School freshman recently returned from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona.

Jaicee Wathne was invited to the world-wide event after winning many awards at the regional and state science fairs in Iowa. She says her exhibit is about grey water. “Grey water is used water from your washing machine or your dishwasher. I tested grey water from a washing machine and tap water on a bean plant. I compared them for four weeks and found the grey water plant grew more in length and the tap water plant grew more in width.”

Wathne’s finding that grey water can be used to cultivate plants could be useful in reusing water for agriculture in countries where it is scarce.

Wathne adds she was able to interact with science students from all around the world during her trip to Phoenix. “It was a really good experience to go down there. There were 1,760 students from 77 countries represented and I got to hear about their experiments, which was a real highlight of the trip.”

Wathne says she plans to add to her experiment and keep competing at science fairs in her remaining three years of high school.

She’ll tell us more about her experience today on Let’s Talk Guthrie County. It airs during the 9 a.m., noon and 5 p.m. hours on K107.9 and www.raccoonvalleyradio.com.

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