Class 5 News

Fungi

Class Five has started our Botany lessons, woven in and around the lessons of the epochs. These lessons reflect the cycle of life and the Indian teachings of the relationship between Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. Plants are born from seed, live their lives, and return to earth as compost leaving only the seeds for the next generation. We begin with something that is not quite a plant, which lives inside Mother Earth and only comes to light when it rains: Fungi. With all the recent rains, we've had quite a plethora of mushrooms for our study! Definitely not something you usually find in the arid ranges.

As plants begin to grow more independent of their earth mother and creep onto the land using sun to fuel them, we find the algae and moss and liverworts, which live here in the crust that forms after the rains. Soon we will learn about the strange symbiosis between these and fungi, which are the lichens.

In the new term, the plants we study will continue to grow more and more independent and will develop from spore producers to flowering plants with seeds and fruits.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break! Enjoy all the new life sprouting up after the rain!

Pam