mycoliteracy

An experiential teaching tool for low socioeconomic status public schools

Mycoliteracy is a kit that teachers can use to teach students in low socioeconomic status schools about the natural environment, their impacts on it, while creating a safe space for students to spend time outside. Through the life cycle of mycelium (material made of mushroom roots), teachers can use provided lesson plans, or develop lesson plans to teach Common Core State Standards (CCSS) while building a relationship between themselves, their students, the community, and the natural environment.

Mycoliteracy gives detailed instructions for growing mycelium in the classroom, using the forms grown to teach national standards, and developing a garden with students using the mycelium forms as nutrients for plants. Mycoliteracy is a year long project that can be incorporated into as many or as few lessons as the teacher chooses and culminates in a garden that is taken care of by students over the summer.

Mycoliteracy Timeline

The Mycoliteracy timeline follows the lifecycle of mycelium in the classroom. Seen above, the timeline is broken down into 5 stages. The first four stages take place during the school year, broken down into four nine weeks. The final stage takes place over the summer. Each stage is accompanied by a booklet that provides information about the mycelium at that stage and possible teaching opportunities.

At the end of the summer, the students have an opportunity to harvest their garden and share with the school or their community. The waste material created in the garden can be used as nutrients to grow new mycelium for the next academic yea. The longer Mycoliteracy is sustained at a school, the more nutrient rich the soil in the garden will become.

Mycoliteracy Booklets

Mycoliteracy is broken down into 5 stages. Each stage follows a portion of the lifecycle of a mycelium shape. The corresponding booklets outline the teaching opportunities and CCSS in that stage. Throughout the booklets, teachers are encouraged to develop a relationship of trust with their students, between their students and nature, and between the community and the school.

Introduction

The first of the 6 booklets introduces teachers to Mycoliteracy. It shows the timeline and explains how they will see it in each of the subsequent booklets. This booklet also introduces the concept of Nature Deficit Disorder. A term coined by author Richard Louv, it is used to describe the gradual separation of children from the natural world due to busier schedules, the rise of urbanization, and a dependence on technology.

Through Mycoliteracy, teachers create projects that reconnect their students to nature and teach CCSS at the same time.

Stage 1: Growing Mycelium

In second booklet, Stage 1, teachers will be introduced to the material mycelium. The booklet explains mycelium's role in the environment and how it is a beneficial part of our ecosystem. The corresponding poster shows the parts of a mushroom and reinforces this information for the students.

Stage 1 goes through the steps to growing a new mycelium shape during the first 9 weeks of the academic school year. Detailed instructions are provided in the booklet and slightly more simplified instruction cards are provided for students. The students' individual cards can be copied by the teacher to distribute the their students or groups of students.

Stage 2: Teaching with Mycelium

Example of Photosynthesis Classroom Poster

In the second stage of Mycoliteracy, teachers will use the dry mycelium shapes they and their class grew in the first stage to teach lesson plans based on Common Core State Standards. Because the standards cover Math and Language Arts, Mycoliteracy suggests several shapes that can incorporate some of the benchmarks students might see on state mandated tests.

The Teaching with Mycelium booklet introduces important natural cycles of earth to students and teachers. The booklet breaks down the cycles and shows the role of mycelium in those cycles in the natural environment. While teachers are utilizing the physical form of their mycelium to teach math or language arts, the students also learn important lessons about the material and efficiently performing systems that make all life on earth possible.

Stage 3: Planting Seeds

Stage three takes place in the third nine weeks of the school year. Weather is warming up and the semester is ended with spring break. The booklet introduces teachers to the importance of Ecoliteracy - an idea that education can cultivate the knowledge, empathy and actions required for environmentally and socially responsible lifestyles. Introducing children to Ecoliteracy develops these characteristics in them at an early age. Introducing Ecoliteracy in the classroom is a way to combat Nature Deficit Disorder while creating a new generation that is more responsible in production, consumption, and the way they treat each other.

In stage three: Planting Seeds, students will research their local ecology and learn the best plants to grow based on the location of their garden. Students can decide what types of plants they would like to see grow, and begin to plot a garden with the provided poster. Once the garden is planned, they can begin to plant seeds in their mycelium shapes to grow seedlings. Through the third nine weeks, students will learn to take care of their plants by watering them and ensuring they have the right amount of sunlight. Teachers can use spring break as a time to test the students by allowing them to take their plants home for the week. By the time they come back from break, the plants will be ready to plant in their school garden.

Stage 4: Planting a Garden

In stage four, the students and teachers will plant their seedlings in a garden. By the end of spring break, the mycelium forms will show some signs of decomposition around the seedlings. This booklet introduces the lifecycle of plastic and gives the teachers some information about the consequences of plastic use on the planet. Students plant their seedlings in the garden with the mycelium, in order to observe and compare the natural decomposition of the material with what they learned about plastic.

At the end of the year, teachers are encouraged to plan times to meet their students at school over the summer to tend to the garden. They can set up a schedule for each student based on various family vacations and summer camps. The idea is to continue maintaining the garden over the summer in order to harvest and share at the beginning of the next year.

Stage 5: The Student Garden

In the last stage, students will grow their garden over the summer. With the help of their teacher, they will continue to weed, water, and prune through the summer. At the beginning of the following year, the students can help harvest, clean out, and mulch the garden for the next class. The garden waste can be used as compost to continue building nutrients in the soil, or as substrate for the new mycelium forms.

Mycoliteracy Posters

Booklets for stages 1 through 4 also have posters that can be hung up in the classroom. The posters correspond with the material introduced to the teachers in the booklets. Each poster plays a role in introducing important information that corresponds with the lifecycle of the mycelium or the activities that are performed during that stage.

See the full Mycoliteracy booklets

Mycoliteracy began as a Master's Thesis Project. The system is currently being prototyped at a Title I arts based public elementary school in New Mexico. With help from the teachers, I hope to continue to fine tune the language in the booklets, the timeline, and develop more specific lesson plans for other teachers. Please take a look at the booklets.

For more information about Mycoliteracy, or a copy of the project booklets, please feel free to contact me.