There's a Fungus Among Us!

Today, we dug into the world of fungus! As we do with all our organisms, we decided to break down its classification in order to better understand why it's called a fungus.

Is it Biotic or Abiotic?

We discussed whether fungus is biotic or abiotic? Here was our list we compiled:

Reasons Why We Think Fungus is Biotic:

• It Grows
• It Reproduces
• It "eats" - needs to get energy from something else
• It can die

Reasons Why We Think Fungus is Abiotic: 

• It doesn't move
• It doesn't have roots

 Plants Vs. Fungus

We then discussed the reasons why a fungus is NOT a plant. We talked about how the walls of a  plant is made of cellulose but the fungus cell wall is made of chitin! Fun Fact: Chitin is the SAME material that makes up the exoskeleton of bugs!!!! We also talked about how plants are producers! Producers make their own food. Fungus are not producers, they are consumers. They need to get their energy from the environment around them! 

The Name Game! 

We then took a hike around the schoolyard to find some fungus! We learned that scientists give organisms scientific names. These scientific names are usually in Latin and generally describe the organism. We decided to do this with our mushrooms, except we used Spanish words to create Spanish Scientific Names instead! Check out what we discovered and named: 

We decided this looks like a rock. We named it "Brown Rock".
It's Spanish Scientific name is rocas marones.

We decided this looks like popcorn. Therefore, we titled
this "Small Popcorn". In Spanish, this is
palomitas de maiz pequeno

We decided this looks like Alligator Skin. Therefore, we titled
this "Skin of Alligator". In Spanish, this is
piel de cocodrilo

We decided this looks like an acorn. Therefore, we titled
this "Food of Squirrel". In Spanish, this is
blanco comida de ardilla

We decided this looks like a deflated red balloon.
Therefore, we titled this "Red Balloon". In Spanish,
this is globo rojo

We decided this looks like lava. Therefore, we titled
this "White Lava". In Spanish, this is
blanco lava

Checking out our blanco lava

We were trying to decide the
perfect name. It was tough!

We decided this looks like snake skin
Therefore, we titled this "skin of snake".
In Spanish, this is
piel de culebra

Artwork with Fungus!

After our exploration, we finished up the day by painting with mushrooms! We made some creative paintings using the fungus we learned about.

We even got to check out some of the anatomy of a mushroom under the microscope!

One Urban Naturalist checks out
this mushroom's gills!