Download printable mushroom worksheet

A-maz-itr;gMushrooms
Mushrooms come in all sorts of
colors, shapes, and sizes. They
can look like dunce caps,
shelves,or spheres.
Are mushrooms plants?
Scientists used to divide all living things
into two groups or kingdoms: the plant
kingdom and the animal kingdom. Plants
make their own food. They contain a green
pigment called chlorophyll, which lets them
use the sun's energy to turn carbon dioxide
from the air and water from the soil into
sugars. Animals get their food by eating
plants or other animals.
Mushroorns are aboveground
fruitine bodies.
Mushrooms do not contain chlorophyll.
Like animals, they get their food secondhand, so they are not plants. But they are
not animals either. So scientists decided to
put them in a new kingdom named fungi.
Mushrooms are among thousands of different kinds of fungi. (One is called a fungus.)
The mushroom is the fruiting stage. Most
of the fungus consists of hidden threadlike
hyphae under the ground or in rotting
wood. Fungi are important members of the
decomposition team, helping rot wood and
other dead material. Over 500 kinds are
found in the ancient forest.
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Threads of a
fungus are called
hyphae. Hyphae
comes{iom the
Greek word for "web."
Truffles are
underground
fruiting
bodies.
-//
Spores
New fungi grow from spores.
Spore comesfrom the Greek
word for "seed."
Find your way to the
mushroom through the
tangled hyphae in the log.
Peat Bogs - Long Term Storage
Peat bogs are found in northern areas around the world. The
most common plant in a peat bog is a moss with spongy leaves called
sphagnum moss. Bogs are poorly drained and very acid. This is a
tough environment for bacteria and the other decomposers.They
cannot break down all the plant material. Over time, dead
plants pack down into dense mats of peat, which looks
like dark soil. Peat is coal in the making. Both peat and
coal can be burned as fuel.
Fens are similar to peat bogs, but some water flows
through them. Grasses, sedgesand reeds grow in fens.
If the water stops flowing through a fen it gradually
becomesa bog.
Pete Moss says bogs are like history books. They
tell the story ofthe past. People digging in a bog
in Chile found tent poles tied together with twine
that was 12,500 years old. They could even tell
what stone-agepeople had for dinner--chunks of
mastodon meat and potatoes.
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One letter at a
change a peat to a coal
used for fuel
PEAT
animal skin
...changeafentoabog
FE
N
worn around waist
helps a fish swim
you can ring it
fruit
weeYil in cotton
thick mist
water can at 100' C
ring or spiral of rope
28
C--0'A
L
used for fuel
wetland with
slowly moving water
B
O
G
wetland with acid
soil and standing water
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Grizzly or Black Bear?
Grizzly bears are fiercer than black bears.You can't tell them apart by their color'
The grizzly bear isn't always brown; the black bear isn't always black. And size isn't a
goodclue,either.The averageweight ofa gnzzlyis 490 pounds(223k0 comparedwith
220 lbs (100kg) for a black bear.However,onemale black bear weigheda record880
pounds(a00kg).
Black Bear
Grizzly Bear
Found in Alaska and in northwest€rn states and westerar
provinces.
Dished. or cavedin. face
when seen from the side.
Shoulderhump due to large
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Wideepread over Canada and !!!,
found in 42 states, including
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Faceformsa straightline
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from its forehead to its nose.
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No shoulderhumo.
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trach
Rarelyclimbstrees.
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Goodcrimber.
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These wildlife photographs have lost their labels. Label them aa"Grizzlyn
6can't tell.t
"Black Beaf or
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00 lbs.
227 kg).
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