Plants build themselves out of air and water, powered by sunlight.
Lesson 1 of 6 in Science
Animals have to eat to get food. Plants make their own. Photosynthesis is the process plants use to make food (a sugar called glucose) from carbon dioxide and water, using energy from light. Almost every food chain on Earth starts with it – and it puts oxygen into the air you breathe.
The word equation for photosynthesis is:
Photosynthesis | The Dr. Binocs Show | Learn Videos For Kids
Peekaboo Kidz
What is Photosynthesis? | KS3 Biology
iNewittAll
3 questions · 0 answered
Log in to save your scores and progress.
That was a free sample. The rest is for schools on RudimentaryLabs.
Next up: Respiration, one of 5 more lessons in Science.
The substances on the left are the reactants (what goes in). The ones on the right are the products (what comes out). Light is not a substance, so it is written over the arrow: it supplies the energy.
Where does each part come from?
And the products?
Leaves are well designed for this job: they are broad and flat to catch light, thin so gases do not have far to travel, and packed with chloroplasts.
Investigation: Does more light mean faster photosynthesis?
Expected result: The closer the lamp, the more bubbles per minute. More light means faster photosynthesis – up to a point, when something else, like the amount of carbon dioxide, starts to limit it.
Growers pump extra carbon dioxide and use bright lamps in greenhouses to grow crops faster. Rainforests and ocean algae release huge amounts of oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the air, which helps limit climate change.