Classes

Edible and Poisonous Fungi (Fall)

11:776:257
Undergrad, 1 credit course (topics course)
Course syllabus

Open to all majors, this is a great course for anyone interested in learning more about fungi and, mushrooms. Students will learn how to identify fungi, eat, cook with, make dyes, make paper and of course dying from eating the wrong mushrooms. There is a rotation of guest lectures with expertise in fungi history and products each year.

There is a fun creative project where students have the opportunity to make a portfolio of fungi. Some students have written poems, songs, and various forms of art.

 

Fungi in the Environment (Fall)

11:776:400
Undergrad, 3 credit course
Course syllabus

Designed for science majors. Many students come from: food science, biology, plant science, evolutionary ecology majors. Course covers early classification and characteristics of fungi, part of the class is dedicated to the ecology of fungi – its niche behavior and the way they work – various functions of fungi in environment.

Students some get hands on experience through several labs that take the place of lectures. There is a collection requirement where students to go out and collect fungi and learn to identify them. Students are introduced to fungal identification through microscopy.

There are also group projects where research is done on a fungal topic of interest through the library or from qualified references on-line. Students will write a paper and give an oral presentation.

 

Advanced Mycology (Spring)

16:765:533
Undergrad and Graduate, 3 credit course
Course syllabus

Co-taught with John Dighton, Ning Zhang and Joan W. Bennett. Taking the Fungi in the Environment course one step further, students have to isolate and identify 20 different fungi. Students will learn how to grow fungi, isolate, and how to encourage sporulation though the use of different media. The majority of the identification is morphological identification through microscopy and various literature resources. Students will also have the opportunity to extract DNA from fungi and learn how to identify it through use of DNA sequence data.