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World Genome Academy

Stories from the Field

The first stories are coming. Our summer 2026 alpha cohort at Venice High School (LAUSD) will be the first students to collect samples, sequence DNA, and share what they find — and their stories will live here.

Each one will be real: a student, a sample, a sequencer, and a discovery in their own backyard.

Stylized illustration of a diverse high-school cohort doing environmental DNA fieldwork on a California coast, sampling water and soil with a mentor and a portable sequencer.
Illustration — a placeholder for the kind of fieldwork our summer 2026 cohort will do, until their own photos and stories land here.

What our first cohort will do

Students will collect soil and water samples from their own neighborhood, extract DNA, and run it on a portable Oxford Nanopore sequencer. They'll analyze what they find, write it up, and present it to their community — then add their data to the California eDNA Atlas.

Want to be among the first to read those stories? Subscribe below.

Illustration of a student kneeling to collect a water sample into a vial at a creek edge.
Illustration of sample vials and a portable sequencer on an outdoor field table.

Where the stories will come from

Central Valley

Agriculture and education intersect here. As cohorts come online, expect stories about soil health, student discoveries, and regenerative agriculture across the valley that feeds California.

Coast

From Monterey Bay to San Diego. Marine eDNA will tell us what is migrating, what is thriving, and what is disappearing along 1,100 miles of coastline.

Sierra

Snowmelt-fed streams carry eDNA from alpine meadows to foothill reservoirs — freshwater biodiversity at every elevation, waiting to be read.

Be first to read them

Our summer 2026 cohort's stories land here first. Subscribe and we'll send them your way as they come in.

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