Materials required 

A slice of bread, water sprayer, filter paper, dropper, Petri dish, glass slide, cover slip, forceps, Compound microscope. 

Procedure 

Real lab procedure 

• Take the filter and keep it inside the petri dish.  
• Take a piece of bread.  
• Place it on a filter paper kept in a Petri dish. 
• Sprinkle some water on it using water sprayer.
• Close the petri dish. 
• Leave it undisturbed in a warm shaded place for 2 - 3 days. 
• Observe the surface of the bread slice kept in petri dish. 
• You may find some thread-like structures on it.  
• With a forceps, pull out a few threads like structure from the bread slice. 
• Place the threads like structure (sample) on a glass slide. 
• Add three to four drops of water over the sample by using dropper. 
• Place a cover slip over the glass slide.  
• Observe under the low power of microscope. 

Simulator procedure 

• Drag the forceps towards the bread slice, then click on it to take a few threads of fungi.  
• Drag and drop the forceps with the thread of fungi towards the glass slide to drop it on the glass slide. 
• Drag and drop the dropper towards the beaker to take few drops of water and put few drops of water on to the glass slide. 
• Drag and drop the cover slip on to the glass slide. 
• Drag and drop the glass slide towards the stage of the microscope to place it under the lens.
• Click on the eye piece to view the microscopic view.  
• Click on the next button to view for the labelling of fungi.  
• Click on the highlighted parts on the image to view the name and its functions observe each parts of fungi.  

Observations 

• Bread mould is a kind of fungus and the thread-like structures on the surface of moist bread are the hyphae of a fungus.  
• Some hyphae develop a spherical or club-shaped body at the tips called sporangium. 
• The sporangiophore is a specialized fungal hypha as a stalk of sporangium.  
• The sporangium produces several hundreds of minute rounded spores. 
• These spores are asexual reproductive bodies which are released into the atmosphere. 
• Under certain conditions, these spores germinate into new hypae.