What makes a good environment for fungi? How do fungi make a good environment for us?

In this unit, students learn about fungi and investigate what conditions make a good environment for fungi. Students create their own investigations to assess the best way to grow fungi, looking at factors such as temperature, materials and moisture and attempting to grow fungi under different conditions, making predictions about how the conditions will affect growth. Students gather data from texts and media to summarise information about the presence and impact of fungi on our environment, including their part in carbon sequestration. They revise their predictions to reflect the information they have collected. Finally, they design a fungi owner’s manual to help another person grow fungi. 

Eukaryotic organisms, fungi, carbon sequestration, climate change.

This unit has a creativity and critical thinking focus:

• Design personally novel investigations of the needs of a specific, “strange” organism, design an environment that suits those needs and produce a manual to teach others. 

• Consider the organism in the larger ecological context and model how it affects biological systems and climate.

Web and Print

• Fungi and climate (resource for the teacher)

• Structure of fungi - Another structure diagram

• L 3 Information for students to browse (attributions: Wiki) 

• L4 Video on fungi (YouTube) Watch 3:22- 8:01

Others

• L3 materials for growing moulds: old fruit, bread, paper and plastic bags and other items suggested by the class. Mushroom growing kit (example here) 

• L6 and 7 microscopes or magnifying glasses for small groups 

English Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cm4WwaV18jWC3tj0f6DNxEQScecOZiL5k7z4BpX4bOc/edit?usp=sharing 

Hindi Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WcP285FRnte4jEsM1wfGijkAHrEYI7X6-NcCGJpvTzE/edit?usp=sharing 

Gujarati Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/13VUCASGVvNi1F3kvS0c66BBM8YSgFHXLpe3tNVTSUD8/edit?usp=sharing 

Kannada Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l9a9W-1pE0bE3OrCf7ZhxQYWEHDQM61Dy_M4qxsh0Ao/edit?usp=drive_link