Fungi:
- Make us itch (athlete's foot, ring-worm)
- Are tasty (mushrooms, morels)
- Relax us (wine, beer)
- Make us sick (mycotoxicoses)
- Heal us (penicillin)
- Rot our food (plant disease, moldy bread)
- Keep our forests healthy (mycorrhizae)
- Kill us (Amanitas)
- Make us sneeze (mold allergies)
- Keep us from getting buried in waste (copriphilous fungi)
In this class we will find out more about these and other neat tricks fungi perform and why they behave as they do. The course will contain over 20 lessons on these topics.
Course content: This course will be enjoyable for the naturalist and the mycophile who wish to learn more about the unseen fungi that lurk in the world about us. In addition, the course will be useful for agricultural and health care workers who encounter fungal diseases and wish to have a basic, general knowledge of these fungi. The course is designed to provide basic understanding of fungal diversity and will cover current topics in fungal research. The level is aimed at those who already have a background in general biology (one course at the university level).
The course is non-credit, a credit version is available for students registered at MSU. The course is organized to cover all of the groups of organisms historically considered to be fungi, including mushrooms, slime molds, water molds, chytrids, rusts and smuts, etc. Self evaluation exercises will be inserted throughout the lessons. Links to web-sites and references to other resources for more information will be included. For the non-credit course: The exercises will be graded self-graded, but an instructor will be available to address questions on the material presented.
