What Are Mushrooms? | Botany Basics

Is a mushroom a plant or an animal? Mushrooms come from fungi, which grow deep underground. But what are fungi and why are they so important to all living things?

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Questions and Prompts for Educators

Check for Understanding

What is a mushroom?
Why were fungi a mystery for so long?

Take It Further

Mushrooms often pop up when there’s been a lot of rain or the ground is very wet. How might you create the right environmental conditions to grow mushrooms indoors? Design an experiment with variables such as humidity, light, and temperature to test the best conditions for growth indoors.

Create

Use clay or Play-Doh to create your own mushroom. What does it look like? What is it called? Create a story about your fictional mushroom. Where does it grow? Can you eat it, use it for medicine, or is it poisonous?

Make a Personal Connection

Describe the types of mushrooms you see in stores or growing in gardens or community spaces. Do you like to eat mushrooms bought from a store? What are your favorite kinds? How do you eat them?

Next Generation Science Standards: Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS2.A: INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIPS IN ECOSYSTEMS
How do organisms interact with the living and nonliving environments to obtain matter and energy?
LS2.B: CYCLES OF MATTER AND ENERGY TRANSFER IN ECOSYSTEMS
How do matter and energy move through an ecosystem?

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