Jared enjoys the chess club and playing in the marching band, as well as participating in 4-H, which allows him "to do things at home on the farm." He hopes to pursue a career in computer science.
Jared's mentor is Mr. Tom Price, a local farmer and compost advocate who encouraged his research.
Living on a hog farm inspired Jared to conduct research on reducing manure odor with processed paper bedding. In previous research, Jared showed that swine manure breaks down processed paper. As a next step, Jared was interested in determining whether processed paper could also reduce odor. After consulting with a researcher who has worked on odor reduction, Jared hypothesized that the paper would help reduce odors, because the paper would supply the bacteria in the manure, and rapid expansion of bacteria breaks odorous compounds into less odorous substances. He would use straw, another common bedding material, as a comparison.
Jared collected manure and urine samples from market animals and mixed the samples together, forming a uniform mixture. He distributed the mixture into six jars; he mixed two jars with straw and two with processed paper, and left two untreated as a control. He then connected the jars to a boric acid trap, with methyl red/bromocresol green indicators. The indicators change color as ammonia is released from the manure. Every couple of days, Jared would replace the boric acid with new boric acid. He then used a titration system to measure the ammonia release and divided that by airflow in milliliters per minute for the individual pump to each jar. Jared supported his hypothesis that the paper-and-manure mixture did statistically increase ammonia production, creating less offensive odor than did the straw-and-manure mixture.
