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ManualsBrandsBack to the Roots ManualsEdible GardenOrganic Mushroom Grow Kit -Discovery Edition (2-Pack)

Garden Toolkit and curriculum provided by Back to the Roots® . Visit backtotheroots.com/curriculum to download all unit materials and view source listings.

Back to the Roots is on a mission to help every family experience the magic of growing their own food.

We’re bringing this mission into your classroom with the Garden Toolkit — including the Mushroom Grow

Kit

, Water Garden, and Garden-in-a-Can — designed to inspire you to take a closer look at how food grows.

Unit 1 is based on the Mushroom Grow Kit that you will use to grow organic oyster mushrooms in just 10

days! By the end of this unit, you will be able to answer the questions below and be well on your way

to becoming a mycologist (someone who studies mushrooms and other members of the Kingdom Fungi).

Back to the Roots Garden Toolkit

Unit 1: Mushroom Grow Kit

Chapter 1: What are mushrooms?

Introduction to the tree of life, how fungi

and other organisms are classified, and the

important resources that mushrooms and

people need to live!

Chapter 2: What do they do?

Exploration of the circle of life and how

mushrooms break down trees and plant

material to make nutrients and minerals.

Chapter 3: How do the

y grow?

A closer look at the anatomy and life

cycle of the oyster mushroom and the

differences between your Mushroom Grow Kit

and mushrooms growing in nature.

Thinking Cap

When you see the brain

icon put on your thinking

cap and write down your

answers to our challenge

questions!

WORD BANK

Keep an eye out for vocabulary words in

blue throughout each chapter, and visit the

Mushroom Glossary at the end to find each

definition.

mycologist

tree of life

organisms

species

mushrooms

hyphae

mycelium

nucleus

decompose

resources

ecosystem

enzymes

soil food web

substrate

gills

basidia

ACTIVITIES

Mushroom Grow Kit Growth Log

Thinking Cap: Unit Review

OVERVIEW

Summary of content (9 pages)

PAGE 1
Back to the Roots Garden Toolkit Unit 1: Mushroom Grow Kit OVERVIEW Back to the Roots is on a mission to help every family experience the magic of growing their own food. We’re bringing this mission into your classroom with the Garden Toolkit — including the Mushroom Grow Kit, Water Garden, and Garden-in-a-Can — designed to inspire you to take a closer look at how food grows.
PAGE 2
Chapter 1: What are mushrooms? Eucaryota TREE OF LIFE Bacteria Archaea Animals Fungi Slime Molds Plants Basidiomycota Ascomycota Glomeromycota Zygomycota Chytridiomycota Taxonomic Classification In taxonomy, life is divided into 8 groups. They start off broad and get more specific, until we arrive at a unique living thing, called a species. New species are discovered all the time and so the list is always being added to and improved upon.
PAGE 3
Chapter 1: What are mushrooms? Mushrooms are more like animals than plants, even though they might not look like it. When we look at what they need, it becomes a little more clear.
PAGE 4
Chapter 2: What do mushrooms do? The Ecosystem An ecosystem is an ecological system, or all the living things in an area interacting with one another and the resources available there. Every living thing, or organism, has a special role to play as they interact with the same resources (the things that aren’t alive like nutrients, minerals, air, water, and sunlight). Everything feeds something else, and eventually everything dies.
PAGE 5
Chapter 3: How do mushrooms grow? Mushrooms are mysterious creatures and it can be tricky to see how they grow, mostly because they spend the majority of their life below ground as a network of hyphae (see Chapter 2 if you need a refresher). To really understand what’s happening as mushrooms grow, we need to take a closer look. Read each step of the growth cycle below while looking at the diagram on Page 7.
PAGE 6
Chapter 3: How do mushrooms grow? Understanding Mushroom Growth 6 In nature this happens under the soil where the mycelium searches for woody food to eat. In your classroom Mushroom Grow Kit the same thing is happening, but we went ahead and gave the mycelium all the food it needs in a substrate, or growing substance.
PAGE 7
Chapter 3: How do mushrooms grow? Label each step in the diagram below with the numbers from “Understanding Mushroom Growth” on Page 5-6.
PAGE 8
Vocabulary BASIDIUM (ba·sid·i·um) Spore Cannons! Microscopic structures on the gills of the mushroom which form spores and shoot them out like cannons! DECOMPOSE (de·com·pose) To break down or decay over time. EUKARYOTA (eu·kary·ot·a) Domain of living things with multiple cells and a nucleus. Includes Kingdom Plantae, Animalia, and Fungi. ECOSYSTEM (eco·sys·tem) An ecological system of all living things interacting with one another and the resources in a given area.
PAGE 9
Vocabulary Vocabulary ORGANISM (or·gan·ism) Any living thing. PHYLOGENETIC TREE OF LIFE (phy·lo·ge·net·ic) A visual represenation of the evolution of life on Earch showing relationships between species. PINNING (pin·ning) The early stage of mushroom growth when the mushroom caps begin to appear. RESOURCES (re·source) The non-living parts of an environment like nutrients, minerals, air, water, and sunlight. SOIL FOOD WEB An ecosystem living below the soil.