Antibiotic resistant bacteria can pose significant health risks.

When a high school student at Fairview HS in Boulder, Colorado, looked for antibiotic resistant bacteria while doing a science project, he discovered that antibiotic resistant bacteria were common in the local watershed. As we use more and more antibiotics, the frequency of antibiotic resistant bacteria increases and can pose an increasing threat to our collective health and well being.

Where are antibiotic resistant bacteria? Are there resistant bacteria in your community? In your water? In your yard?

This is a citizen science project aimed at documenting the presence or absence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in watersheds. Our focus thus far has been in aquatic communities, mostly of the Front Range near Boulder Colorado. Please join us in looking in our waterways for antibiotic resistant bacteria so that we can better know the world we live in and how the use of antibiotics in agricultural settings and in our households influences the ecological community we live in.

Click the 'Map' tab to view maps that show the frequency of antibiotic resistance for two antibiotics. There is also a global map showing the presence of resistance based on published work. Click 'Graphics and Information' for background research and data, including charts from the literature and a downloadable spreadsheet with our own findings attached. Photos has a sampling of photographs comparing plates that have bacteria growth with and without antibiotics present, so you can see the coverage for yourself. 'The Science' redirects to a detailed methods page so you can recreate our experiments on your own, and then click 'Contact' to send us your findings! Finally, 'The Team' provides a list of people who have contributed to the project through research and website development.