Formulated at Yale University in 2012, the Small World Initiative (SWI) is an innovative program to inspire and retain students in STEM and increase scientific literacy while addressing a worldwide health threat – antibiotic resistance and the resulting diminishing supply of effective antibiotics. The program centers around an introductory discovery-based course in which students perform hands-on field and laboratory research on soil samples in the hunt for new antibiotics. This sets up a unique platform to "crowdsource" antibiotic discovery from the efforts of thousands of student researchers around the world as most antibiotics come from soil bacteria and fungi. To date, SWI has trained educators at hundreds of schools in 45 US states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and 15 countries. SWI aims to fundamentally transform science education and early-stage drug discovery.

Small World Initiative

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