A Moldy Mystery

For the past few months, Alexandra and I have really been enjoying three book series by Kane Press: Science Solves It, Math Matters, and Social Studies Connects. These are great books that give "Did You Know?" facts on many of their pages. And, they usually have some "Try It Yourself" type activities at the back.

This weekend we read A Moldy Mystery by Michelle Knudsen and Alexandra wanted to grow some mold herself. So, we found an old container (which we'll throw away when we're done with it!) and added some food - a piece of cheese, pizza crust, a strawberry, and a few other things. We stored the container in the dark closet - since molds love dark and warmth! Within 48 hours the strawberry had a huge amount of fuzzy white mold growing on it. Yuck! (Since I can't take the lid off, it was kind of hard to photograph.)

So, we're going to keep watching it for another week or so. After we see what grows the best mold, we might try to vary this and put a strawberry in the dark and a strawberry in the light and see what happens. It's a fun... and gross!... experiment.