Mushroom Spore Prints- Free Lesson

Why does everyone want to sit next to the mushroom in the cafeteria? Because he's a really fungi!
Make a mushroom spore print and see how mushrooms reproduce!

The students will be able to see the reproductive spores of a mushroom by making a mushroom spore print. 

1) Mushroom

2) Light Colored Paper

3) A cover for the mushroom

Mushroom spore prints are easy to make, and just require a little patience.

Take a mushroom and detach the stem carefully.

Place the mushroom on a white piece of paper, gill side down. Cover the mushroom and allow it to sit undisturbed overnight, or several hours.

When it is time to reveal your print, carefully remove the mushroom and admire. You can spray the paper with hair spray so the spores stay in place. Each spore print will look different; enjoy your mushroom spore art!

Review with students how flowers and plants grow beginning with the planting of the seed.

Pass around a mushroom to students and ask students to identify if the mushroom has seeds and where they might be? Have students share their ideas.

Tell your students that mushrooms are fungi, not a plant, but they still grow new mushrooms- yet they don’t have seeds. How?

Discuss with students that mushroom spores are kept protected in the gills of the mushroom under the cap. The spores are very, very tiny almost like dust. The spores are transported as the wind blows by, or even by animals passing by. Spores also can fall on their own, down to the ground from the gills.

It should also be mentioned to young children that, although some mushrooms are edible, they should never eat a mushroom they find growing in the wild because not all mushrooms are safe to eat.

By making a spore print, you will be able to see the tiny spores.

Review with students how mushrooms grow and how the spores are transported.  Mushrooms are a good source of Vitamin B and are a low calorie snack.

If time and creativity allow, decorate your spore print... maybe your spore print is now a tire to a monster truck!