Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the project addresses the…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the project addresses the educational and workforce need to bring more students enrolled in two-year colleges and members of underrepresented minorities into agricultural sciences. We propose to accomplish this through an undergraduate research program that engages students in summer research at a land grant university. The research goal is to provide a pipeline of new antimicrobials for enhancing crop and livestock health. We built tiny earth, a research course that crowdsources antimicrobial discovery with college students as the research workforce. The tiny earth course is taught at all types of colleges and universities worldwide to more than 10,000 students annually. In the course, students isolate bacteria from soil (the richest known source of antimicrobial compounds) and screen them for the ability to kill plant and animal pathogens. We will collaborate with three two-year colleges that teach tiny earth to largely minority populations (black, hispanic, and native american). After taking the tiny earth course at their home institutions, selected students will spend a summer at the university of wisconsin-madison pursuing the next stages of the project. They will learn to analyze genomes and metabolites from antimicrobial-producing bacteria they isolated from soil. The summer experience will build the students' confidence in their research skills, increase their knowledge of agricultural sciences, and enhance their sense of belonging at a four-year land grant university. After the summer research course, the students will be more prepared for either entering stem careers directly after completing a two-year degree or transferring to four-year institutions.