Science students from Jefferson High School and the Boulder Elementary seventh and eighth spent the week of March 27 to 30 trying to find bacteriophages from soil and water samples they collected from the local environment.
What are bacteriophages? Called phages for short, bacteriophages are viruses that kill bacteria. Why are local students searching for phages? These viruses hold promise for treating antibiotic resistant bacteria known as “superbugs.” More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics each year and phages may be one of the alternative treatments that can help.
JHS students started searching for phages in 2015 when JHS science teacher Steve McCauley joined a program offered by the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program (CFWEP) called Bringing Research into the Classroom (BRIC). CFWEP, based at Montana Tech, partnered with biology Professor Marisa Pedulla to bring phage research into teacher classrooms. The BRIC program included a summer training academy for the teachers and a yearly visit to their classrooms to do phage hunting with Dr. Pedulla and CFWEP staff. While phages are not easy to find, former JHS students Ethan Zuefelt and Sky Wagoner each found a phage in 2015. Student discoverers get to name their phage and are identified as the discoverer in a phages database (phagesdb.org).
