Mac lives on a poultry from, where she and her family raise egg layers and specialty poultry breeds, and is a 4-H poultry club member.

Inspired by her experiences ordering chicks from hatcheries via mail, Mac set out to find a way to improve shipping conditions for day old chicks, so that injuries and stress could be reduced. She began to research and innovate a solution, going through many prototypes as she fine-tuned her idea. All of her hard work and determination led her to design a new type of shipping container which improves shipping conditions for day old chicks.

She entered her innovation project in the 4-H Canada Science Fair, where she won a spot on the team to attend the Canada-Wide Science Fair 2018 in Ottawa. In addition to exploring the capital, and meeting like-minded youth from across Canada, Mac shared her shipping container design with the judges and thousands of visitors.

And at the end of the week, her innovative project was awarded the Platinum Award for top Junior project in Canada – in addition to a gold medal, top Challenge award, Youth Can Innovate Award, scholarships, and the opportunity to share her project at the Broadcom MASTERS International program in the United States.

Her advice for students thinking about doing a project is: “When thinking about your project ask yourself what you are truly passionate about, it makes the process so much more fun.”

Read more about Mac’s innovation in the Canadian Science Fair Journal: https://csfjournal.com/volume-1-issue-2/2019/2/8/safer-chick-ments-an-innovative-solution-to-reducing-stress-in-chick-shipments