fungi4schools – the new BMS education website

Abstract

The one place it's almost impossible to find fungi is in the UK National Curriculum for schools. The state of the National Curriculum (NC) is a real concern because the current specifications all contain material on animal and plant comparisons with little or no consideration for the largest group of higher organisms on Earth: Kingdom Fungi. This means that children are missing out on being taught about the importance of an entire Kingdom of higher organisms. To try to compensate for this educational deficiency, the British Mycological Society has taken up the challenge by devising resources teachers can use within the current NC because they address NC topics and also give proper representation to fungi. These resources include specially-produced and ready-to-use lessons and classroom activities, teacher's guides and pupil class sheets, all classroom tested and well received by pupils. But the resources also feature articles published over many years in the Society's journals that need to be brought out of the library archives and made immediately accessible to schools. These resources are available now for free download from the British Mycological Society's new education website at www.fungi4schools.org, which is described in this article.