Providence’s greenspaces host a surprising diversity of fungi, but most remain undocumented or misidentified. This project organizes short field walks and hands-on bench sessions where residents learn to collect, document, and DNA-barcode local fungi.

Volunteers help collect and label. All outputs (protocols, tracker, map, and sequences) will be released under open licenses and deposited to public repositories (GenBank/BOLD where eligible) so anyone can reuse or build on them. By uploading data to places like iNaturalist and MushroomObserver.org, everything is shared for teachers, clubs, and future projects to reuse.

It's an awesome project for the community as neighbors learn real lab skills and see their specimens turn into sequences.