Intro to Mushroom Identification

Learn the basics to get you started on your journey of understanding, identifying and appreciating fungi! This course will be a combination of classroom time and a walk outdoors collecting mushrooms to study. Participants will learn about the anatomy of fungi and tips, tricks and tools for how to begin to make collections and identify them.

Please note, this workshop is not geared towards identifying mushrooms with the goal of harvesting them to eat but instead to gain skills to help us better understand all fungi and their important roles in the ecosystem.

Instructor bio: Elora Adamson is an environmental educator, naturalist and fungi + native plant enthusiast. She has been working with children and adults in the outdoors for a decade (including 4 years at the CEC!) and enjoys sharing her passion for ecology, crawling around looking at the forest floor, and seeking out the most colourful fungi in the forest. She has been a member of the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society for several years and now sits on the board, facilitates species recording and helps organize forays. She has taught several workshops on how to use inaturalist to record and identify fungi and other organisms, introductions to mycology and run introductory mushroom walks. This season she’s working for the BC Inaturalist team and will be travelling around the province recording and collecting fungi.

How to Register for this Event

This workshop is happening in person only. Please dress appropriately for all types of weather, the workshop may be outside or in our heated strawbale building.

Only current members in good standing are eligible to use the free ticket option as a part of their member benefits package.

There are a limited number of Pay What You Can tickets available for folks who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC), and people who are facing significant financial barriers to their involvement in our programming. The Compost Education Centre is continually in the process of examining the ways in which our program accessibility can be improved for all members of our community. This ticket gesture is by no means a fulsome examination of the systems of oppression that exist for people inside and outside of our community. We welcome your ideas and feedback.

You must pre-register for this event. You can purchase a ticket through Eventbrite. You can also register for the event by calling our office at 250 386 9676 or via email by contacting b2ZmaWNlIHwgY29tcG9zdCAhIGJjICEgY2E=

Customers can request a refund within 30 days of ticket purchase. After 30 days refunds and workshop exchanges are not permitted due to administrative staffing capacity.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please be in touch if you are no longer able to attend but hold a ticket so we can make your space available to someone else.

Accessibility

The Compost Education Centre site has flat paths made of woodchips. The strawbale learning classroom is accessed via a wooden ramp and has a wide double door and a ramp leading up to it. Once inside everything is flat.

There is a single-stall gender neutral washroom on site. The washroom is not wheelchair accessible. There is a steep ramp from the wood chip pathway onto the washroom boardwalk, and a 2-inch step up from the washroom boardwalk into the washroom.

About the organization

The Compost Education Centre is located on unceded and occupied Indigenous territories, the land of the Lekwungen people— specifically the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. These nations are two of many, made up of individuals who have lived within the porous boundaries of what is considered Coast Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw Territory (Vancouver Island) since time immemorial. At the CEC we seek to respect, honour and continually grow our own understandings of Indigenous rights and history, and to fulfill our responsibilities as settlers, who live and work directly with the land and its complex, vital ecologies and our diverse, evolving communities.

Compost Education Centre memberships get you free workshops, discounts at garden centres around town and more great perks! Sign up or learn more on our website.

Also check out other Workshops in Victoria.