Mushroom growing offers endless possibilities for science projects and experiments. Below I offer a few ideas, and there are links at the bottom to my pages offering the peroxide-in-mushroom-growing manual, Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way, Home Mushroom Cultivation with Hydrogen Peroxide.
Basics of Mushroom growing: Read this for an overview of the process.
Winners: Take a look at actual winning science projects sent by students.
Project using mushroom kits
Here are some projects you can do, starting with a mushroom kit (or a pair of kits, one for a control). A mushroom kit is ready to start forming mushrooms when you receive it. But remember to plan ahead and give yourself enough time for the mushrooms to grow--this usually takes two to three weeks. (Sorry, I am no longer selling kits--see my Links page for other suppliers). With a kit, you can test things like:
Growing your own mushrooms from a tissue culture by the peroxide method, without using air filtration or pressure sterilization, would make an excellent science project in itself. Here are some additional questions that would also make substantial projects, most starting with mushroom spawn or test tube cultures purchased from suppliers on the Links page, and following instructions in the peroxide manual for the growing process. Plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time.
Finally, the peroxide method itself, as described in Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way, also offers various directions for experimentation, not necessarily involving fungi. For instance, you could see whether the same general idea could be applied to tissue culture of green plants (which also normally requires sterile handling), or to the cultivation of other useful fungi. Or you could experiment with the peroxide-decomposing enzymes found in living material (these cause peroxide solution to decompose, making it bubble and froth), to see how these can be inactivated.
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This document is Copyright: ©1999 by Randall R. Wayne, Ph.D. All commercial rights are reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used for sale in any form or by any means without permission of the author.