Urban Bar Code

Overview

The Urban Barcode Project (UBP) is a science competition spanning the five boroughs of New York City. Just as a unique pattern of bars in a universal product code (UPC) identifies each item for sale in a store, a DNA barcode is a DNA sequence that uniquely identifies each species of living thing. In the Urban Barcode Project, student research teams use DNA barcoding to explore biodiversity in New York City.

Projects can use DNA barcodes to examine any aspect of the NYC environment, such as:

  • Sampling biodiversity in a park, garden, office, or school.
  • Checking for invasive plant or animal species.
  • Monitoring disease vectors.
  • Identifying exotic or endangered food products in markets.
  • Detecting food mislabeling.

Urban Barcode Courses

Information on the the mandatory Conservation Genetics Course to move on to UBRP can be found here. Students who compete in the UBP are exempt from the Bar Coding Course.

Civic Scientist Environmental Monitoring of the Hudson-Raritan Estuary

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