Declaration of Fermentation: community-embedded wild yeast bioprospecting as a model for place-based CURE design

ABSTRACT Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are widely recognized as a high-impact practice in biology education, yet most existing CURE frameworks treat the research organism as an interchangeable teaching prop rather than a genuine scientific contribution. We argue that place-based, community-embedded CUREs—in which students isolate, characterize, and publicly deploy a locally meaningful wild organism—constitute a qualitatively distinct model warranting broader adoption. As proof of concept, we present the Declaration of Fermentation project at Indiana University Bloomington: graduate researchers isolated a wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain from the bark of a campus landmark tree, confirmed its wild provenance by whole-genome sequencing and phylogenomics, and partnered with local craft breweries to produce a colonial-era inspired ale released publicly for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Volunteer sensory panels at two independent public tasting events (combined n = 33–34 per attribute) confirmed a fruity-funky profile consistent with wild-strain fermentation, with no significant differences between events (Mann–Whitney U, Benjamini–Hochberg-corrected P > 0.05 for all 11 attributes). We describe three design principles—genomically confirmed strain identity, mandatory community partnership, and place-based historical narrative—that distinguish this model from prior wild yeast brewing CUREs, discuss how these principles generalize to other institutions and fermentation vehicles, and identify the next steps for formal learning assessment. Complete implementation protocols are provided as supplemental Appendices 1–6, and the bioinformatics pipeline is freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20679384 .