Teach:
Mold grows on different foods at different rates. There are also different kinds of molds that certain pieces of food are prone to. Discuss mold and talk about how it grows on foods that are moist. Let them know they are going to learn more about mold by watching it grow.
Materials:
- Five glass jars with tight lids for each group (empty baby food jars will work well for this)
- Piece of bread
- Apple
- Strawberry
- Boiled egg
- Hot dog
- Water
- Jar labels
- Notebooks
- Pencils
Procedure:
- Have the children write a hypothesis in their notebooks as to what type of mold they expect to grow on each type of food. They can also make a guess as to how quickly the mold will begin to grow.
- Put the students into cooperative groups of four or five. Have some students wet each piece of food and place it inside of a jar. Each piece of food must have it's own jar, and must be completely sealed.
- Have the students label the jars. Even though they can see through the jars in the beginning of the experiment, explain that they may not be able to identify the food once it begins to mold.
- Have students check the jars every couple of days and record what is happening in each jar. They should record the first time they see evidence of mold and what the mold looks like.
- Keep updating the notebooks until the food has a significant amount of mold on it.
Review:
Have the students write out a conclusion in their notebooks. This conclusion should explain whether their hypothesis was correct or incorrect and why. Talk with students about what they have seen. Hand students a reference book if you have one or put one together from online materials. This reference book should list and show pictures of the different kinds of molds. Have children identify which molds were found on which foods. Also discuss why they think some foods starting getting mold faster than the others.
Extend: Graph the results
