Description
This contract entitled Urban Mushroom Farming for Health, is a contract designed to educate the student of the medicinal properties of oyster mushrooms, how oyster mushrooms evolved to possess medicinal properties, how Oyster mushrooms can combat the destructive pressures that are hostile to our earth and how to grow oyster mushrooms in an urban environment. The student will write a research paper focused on the medicinal qualities of oyster mushrooms and relate them to evolutionary concepts. The student will create a sculpture that symbolizes the positive aspects of oyster mushrooms, and how they can help mitigate destructive forces currently threatening our earth. The student will learn to how to cultivate and grow mushrooms in an urban environment
| Learning Objectives |
Activities that will help me to attain this objective |
What my sponsor will evaluate |
- To complete all required work in the SOS program Commodification processes and alternatives.
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- I will participate in Tuesday’s weekly seminars, project check-ins, writing assignments, tasting lab, create an ILC, maintain a portfolio, and create a eField Journal.
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- I will be evaluated through my attendance, participation, completing an in-program ILC, completion of the tasting lab, and maintaining a blog of my daily accomplishments.
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- To learn how to cultivate mushrooms in an urban/inner city environment.
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- I will learn: how to build a small industrial scale mushroom fruiting chamber, choose the most vibrant clones for high yielding cultures, work with agar for taking clones and refining genetics, grain to grain transfers, spore inoculations, run and time the processes in the fruiting chamber, proper harvest timing and technique, and properly picking. I would also like to hold an interview of a person who has done urban mushroom farming as a business. I will use the bookThe Mushroom Cultivator by Paul Stamets as a guide.
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- I will blog about my daily activities and what I have learned throughout the week. I will have photo documentation of daily activities and learnings. I will present the oyster mushrooms I have grown in a tasting lab.
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- To create an art piece that symbolizes how mushrooms can help make the world a better place.
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- I will create a sculpture using multimedia. The sculpture will portray some of the destructive forces the Earth is facing and how oyster mushrooms might assist in the repair of that damage. I plan to pull ideas from the book BioArt: Altered Realities by William Myers
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- I will submit my final art sculpture for review. I will also post a picture of the final piece on my blog.
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- To write a 10-15 page research paper focused on the evolution of mushrooms and their medicinal properties.
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- I will write a hypothesis driven research paper, focusing on the medicinal properties of mushrooms. I plan to research different ways oyster mushrooms can be used to heal the body. I plan to apply evolutionary concepts to answer the question of how Oyster mushrooms evolved to possess properties that are healing to humans. I will draw research information from books, such as The Fungal Pharmacy: The guide to medicinal mushrooms and lichens of North America by Robert Dale Rogers and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stametsas well as online research studies.
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- I will submit my final research paper for review as well as share it on my blog.
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Evaluation of Work
- Narrative evaluation from sponsor
- Narrative self-evaluation from student
- The student will complete all assignments as described on the syllabus, including weekly documentation on the Project pages of the SOS program website. Whenever possible, the student will provide the faculty with a field supervisor, subcontractor, or mentor’s descriptive assessment of in-program ILC work completed with their guidance, expertise, or supervision by week 10. The student will complete comprehensive mid-quarter and final narrative self-evaluations and submit them to faculty prior to mid-quarter and final end of quarter student-faculty conferences. For the final blog post on Project websites, each student will post, and when possible present in class on Tuesday of week 10, a 10-minute PowerPoint Presentation of 10-15 slides with text that demonstrates the highlights of the student’s in-program ILC Project website