PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Every cook needs ingredients to make a meal. Consider a simple sandwich: cheese, tomato, and all the ingredients that go into the bread: flour, water, salt and yeast. Oh, and don’t forget the pickle. But if you’re a plant, you’ll make your meal through photosynthesis—and all you’ll need is a little light, water, and carbon dioxide.

 

Animals (including us!) need energy to grow and thrive. We get that energy from eating food. Plants need energy, too, in order to grow and reproduce. But plants make their own food through a process called photosynthesis.
The word photosynthesis contains clues to its meaning: the prefix photo comes from a Greek word meaning “light.” The root synthesis comes from another Greek word meaning “to put together.”
Through photosynthesis, plants use the energy of light to put a meal together using water and carbon dioxide. To absorb the light, the plants use chlorophyll, the pigment that makes leaves green.
The diagrams beside show how photosynthesis works.