4S) GN-3A (07-Apr-2018) Bharghava Shyam, Tejashree, Nagaraju & Bushra

- April 07, 2018

Date: 5-Apr-18,

Group members: Bushra, Hariprasath, Santoshi, Tejashree, Nagaraju and Bhargava Shyam.

Geography

Geography: Here geography means Human interaction with nature.

Purposes of learning plan:

1) To help nature in increasing its fertility and human’s health.

2) To learn how mushrooms will help human beings.

3) To learn benefits of mushroom to land/soil and environment

4) To learn in which conditions and where mushrooms grows

Background of Mushrooms cultivation:

Mushrooms are the major cash food crop of Pennsylvania. Over 461 million pounds of mushrooms were harvested in 2003, with much of the harvest from the Kennett Square area. This is about half of all of the mushrooms harvested in the whole United States! Growing a mushroom from spore to harvest takes lots of work and at least 10 weeks of time. The mushroom starts in a laboratory where the spores are germinated and form the thread-like fibers called mycelium. Tiny pieces of these fibers are placed on millet seeds and then incubated. Next, the mushroom mycelium is delivered to a mushroom farm. Here, it is cast by hand into an eight-inch deep bed of pasteurized compost. The heat and the humidity in the mushroom house, called a double, are carefully controlled. Computers are often used to help monitor and regulate the growing conditions in the doubles. After about two or three weeks, the compost is covered by the mushroom mycelium. At this time, peat moss is layered over the mycelium. Suddenly, the room temperature is dropped to 60 degrees and the humidity is raised to 95 percent. The mushroom mycelium then all pull together and start to grow up! In another two to three weeks, the mushrooms are fully-grown above the peat moss and ready to be picked.

Recycling Farming mushrooms involves a lot of recycling. Hay, straw, chicken manure and cottonseed hulls are some of the basic ingredients used to make the compost (soil) that mushrooms need to grow. The compost is pasteurized so that any germs or bacteria that might harm the mushrooms are destroyed. This sterile compost is then put into the mushroom houses where the mushrooms are planted. After the mushrooms are harvested, the soil is still valuable. This spent mushroom compost is removed from the mushroom house and recycled in peoples’ gardens, spread in farm fields to provide a growing base for other crops, and used in reclaiming of strip mines and other environments.

Lesson Plan 1: How Mushrooms Grow

Mushrooms like to live in dark, damp places. They feed off of the decaying matter around them using mycelium. As the mushroom grows, it develops spores in the gills. The gills are located on the underside of the cap. New mushrooms grow from these spores. The spores are so tiny that you can’t see them without a microscope. Millions of spores together would look like fine powder.

When the spores are ripe, they shoot out of the mushroom. Then they drift away on the wind. They mix with the spores of other mushrooms. If they land in a dark, damp place with a food source, they will grow into new mushrooms. First, they develop a threadlike structure called a hyphae. Lots of hyphae grow together and form the mycelium. The hyphae and the mycelium grow under the surface where you can’t see them. Because the mycelium of many kinds of mushrooms tends to grow in a circular pattern, the mushrooms often grow in a circle or ring. These rings are called “fairy rings” because people in the olden days thought they were made by fairies dancing through the night. Next, the fruiting body starts to grow. It grows above the surface. When it first appears, it looks like a little button. This button-like part of the fruiting body is called the cap. The cap is protected by a thin covering called a veil. As the mushroom grows bigger, the veil splits and falls down around the stalk (stem) of the mushroom and forms the annulus.

The charts will be used to further carry on the discussion which shows how the mushrooms grow.

After the discussion on understanding how the Mushrooms grow further discussion will be based which will be leaded with some basic questions to understand what has being conveyed through the plan where the clue will be given to the children to guess the answers.

Some questions to reflect?

1. Mushrooms like to live in dark, damp places.

2. They feed off of decaying matter around them.

3. New mushrooms grow from the spores.

4. The spores grow in the gills.

5. The gills are under the cap.

6. Spores shoot out of the gills and mix with spores from other mushrooms.

7. The spores are spread by the wind.

8. When the spores begin to grow, they first develop hyphae.

9. The hyphae grow into a mycelium.

10. The mycelium produces a fruiting body that can be seen above the surface.