School Projects on Moldy Bread

Explore mold and fungi with a school project about moldy bread.

Moldy bread occurs naturally, and watching the mold grow provides inspiration for many school projects. The benefit of moldy bread school projects is that the materials needed are few and inexpensive, but the information learned by studying the mold will improve students' understanding of fungi.

Test Bread Types

Explore whether the type of bread makes a difference in the rate of mold growth.

Conduct a scientific test to determine whether the type of bread makes a difference in the rate at which mold forms on the slice. Use a variety of breads: garlic bread, white bread, rye bread, raisin bread and sweet Hawaiian bread, for example. Slice them to the same dimensions and store them in the same conditions. Hypothesize which bread will get moldy fastest. Conduct the experiment, then draw a conclusion based on the results. This experiment will take several days to allow for the mold to grow.

Causes of Mold

Research the causes of mold formation on foods. Then take that information to replicate the best growing conditions for getting mold on bread. Do light and heat play a role in mold growth? Research what mold is and why it grows. Does mold grow only on bread?

Types of Mold

Answer questions about the types of mold in an illustrated presentation such as a poster board, tri-fold board or slide show. Show images of types of bread mold. Why were these molds different? Did they come from different parts of the world? Was the bread type different? Did the storage conditions differ? After these questions are answered, the project should explain what causes different molds to form.

Mold Transfer

Grow mold on a piece of bread, then determine whether the mold can be transferred to another food and grow there. Take a sample of the mold from the bread and brush it against a block of hard cheese, stir some into a bowl of cottage cheese, mix a sample into milk, rub some of the mold on a prepared cake slice and add mold to the cut surface of a sliced piece of fruit such as an apple or a banana. Wait for a week to see whether the mold grew on these foods. Report in the project whether the experiment succeeded or failed and hypothesize why some foods grew mold while others did not.

References

• Science Nerd Depot: Moldy Bread Experiment
• Science Fair Adventure: Growing Bread Mold
• Education: Transfer Bread Mold to Other Food