I was a participant in one of the Barcoding Life's Matrix (BLM) summer 2012 teacher professional development workshops. Traveling from New Hampshire to California, I fully committed to the eight-day intensive workshop for the anticipated quality of professional instruction that I would receive in the mechanics and logistics of DNA barcoding, but also, for the in-depth understanding of DNA barcoding applications, both present and future. Following the workshop, I implemented the BLM program in a 12th grade molecular biology course. Every one of my students generated COI amplicons that yielded high quality sequencing results. One of the most important aspects of BLM is that students generated REFERENCE barcode sequences that are now available for use by the broader scientific community. As one student remarked, "It was awesome to be a part of something that is useful to scientists worldwide." There is a justifiable concern that student-generated data often will not meet compliance standards to allow population in the BOLD database and publication in GenBank; the BOLD Student Data Portal ensures that students' data meets professional standards before submission to BOLD and INSDC.