Getting to know Fungi

  Black mold: magnified @ 4/0.16x

In this activity, we will grow and observe a number of different fungi which are present in our environment.

Materials Needed:
* slice of hard cheese
* slice of bread
* orange, apple or banana peel
* 3 sealable plastic sandwich bags

Procedure:
1) Inoculate your growing media (bread, cheese and fruit peel) by gently wiping each across a dusty surface.
2) Place each item inside individual sandwich bags. Add 2 tablespoons of water to each bag and then seal.
3) Place all 3 bags in a dark, warm location for 4 to 5 days or however long it takes to see mold growing in each item.

After 8 days, we removed the samples. Except for the cheese which we need to redo, we got these:

The orange peel

The bread

After observing the molds (color, size, smell, etc), we cut an entire colony from the orange peel and the bread and mounted it on the microscope slide.

Woooow! we were blown by what we saw. "Cool, Mom" was what Gia's first reaction. We are now officially loving our microscope and what it can do! =D

The orange peel had black molds growing on it. After several researches, we found out that it is Aspergillus Niger.

Kingdom : Fungi
Class: Eurotiomycetes
Order: Eurotiales
Family: Trichocomaceae
Genus: Arpergillus

Aspergillus Niger: magnified @10/0.25x

The bread on the other hand, had green mold with white cover on it. It is said to be Penicillium mold.

Kingdom : Fungi
Class: Eurotiomycetes
Order: Eurotiales
Family: Trichocomaceae
Genus:Penicillium

Penicillium magnified @ 4/0.16x

Penicillium magnified @ 10/0.25x

 
Results of the cheese will be posted here soon.

What an awesome day spent experimenting and researching and getting to know Fungus/Fungi!!