1. PHOTOSYNTHESIS The Light of Life!
But so what? The leaves catch the red and blue light! Then what? What does the red and blue light actually do inside the leaf to make the plant grow? Well, let’s look at some pictures that will help us understand what happens a bit better…
Picture of a close-up of a leaf surface: So here is a good ole plant, right? The only living creatures on Planet Earth that we know of that can take the energy of the sun and convert it to matter. And this matter makes up just about everything we have or use. Our food, our clothing, anything made from petroleum oil (plastics, the gasoline that makes our machines go, etc) , which is ancient dead plants and animal black goo that is buried deep in the earth. So anyway, we start with a leaf….

2. A LEAF The only living thing that can use light.
But so what? The leaves catch the red and blue light! Then what? What does the red and blue light actually do inside the leaf to make the plant grow? Well, let’s look at some pictures that will help us understand what happens a bit better…
Picture of a close-up of a leaf surface: So here is a good ole plant, right? The only living creatures on Planet Earth that we know of that can take the energy of the sun and convert it to matter. And this matter makes up just about everything we have or use. Our food, our clothing, anything made from petroleum oil (plastics, the gasoline that makes our machines go, etc) , which is ancient dead plants and animal black goo that is buried deep in the earth. So anyway, we start with a leaf….

3. Water and Carbon Dioxide provide building blocks for plant growth.
CO2 in
Diagram of a plant with labeled arrows showing CO2 going into leaf and H2O going into roots. And the leaf gathers 3 raw materials from the environment to make its life work. And the 3 raw materials come into the plant from 3 different places. Point to each as you talk. It gathers water, which is sucked up by the roots and travels to the leaf through the stems. And by the way, the water also washes out and carries other chemicals from the soil that will be used by the plant to do other things later, like make fruit and plant defenses, and other processes that the plant needs to do over its life. So H2O comes up from the roots, and CO2 a gas in the air (where does CO2 come from? Us breathing out) And, the photons of red and blue light from the sun get caught in the little chloroplast nets. And as we will see it uses all these things to make a very sweet, energy-filled food, called SUGAR!
H2O in

4. Stoma Little “mouths” in leaves
Picture of a stoma: So, the CO2 gets into the leaves through these little mouths that are peppered all over the surface of the leaf, and made of just a small bunch of cells, called STOMAS And these little mouths are just big enough for the CO2 to float in and for oxygen to float out.
Just big enough for CO2 to float in and O2 to float out.

5. LEAVES: Food Factories!
Picture of all the other parts. The stoma is right next to all the other machinery inside the leaf that is needed to make the sugar-food. It is like a little factory in there! Now, this sugar is related to the sugar in our sugar bowls, but it is not exactly like it, and you will learn more about that as you take biology and chemistry in Jr. Hi and High school. But anyway, what happens is the plant uses the light as the energy that makes the machinery go, and the plant uses the machinery to pull apart the water and carbon dioxide so that it can use the atoms to make sugar! It is kind of like pulling apart your Leggos and making something new out of them!

6. SUGAR MOLECULE
Formula: And here is what it does…this is the actual equation in science that tells us how photosynthesis works…which Leggos are taken apart and how they are put back together again! go through formula…and what we get when the Leggo work is done is this thing…a molecule of SUGAR, that sweet stuff we all eat in our food that carries the energy that makes life go!

7. We breathe and eat…what the SUN makes!
Picture of a person walking through a forest: Next time you play soccer, or practice Karate, or do your homework , or sit down to dinner, or just take a breath…you can thank the good ole sun for making this sugar that runs your body and everything else around you!