Did you know that photosynthesis is the single most important chemical process on earth?
Without the outcome of this process (oxygen, O2) no humans and just very few animals would be able to survive.
Following up on my last "How to explain the blue sky to a child" post, I like to attempt and explain in this post the process of photosynthesis in a way that a child can understand it.
Let's start by braking down the word photosynthesis.
Photo is a greek word for Light
Synthesis is a greek work for putting it together.
Like humans also plants eat, drink and yes, even breath.
A plant doesn't move around or gets food delivered, so it has to create its own food. The process for a plant to create food is called photosynthesis.
It requires three ingredients for a plant to create food:
- (Sun)light
- Carbon Dioxide
- Water
Light is provided by the sun, the reason why trees and plants actually grow as high in the sky as possible is simply to be able to catch as much sunlight as possible. Without sunlight plants would not have the energy needed to create their food.
Carbon Dioxide is a gas that has a bit of a bad reputation because humans produce too much of it but in itself is actually vital to life on earth. Carbon Dioxide (or CO2) is the "air" that a plant needs to breath
Water is essential to all live and plants drink it as well.
So what is actually the process of "Putting it together with light".
Image source: www.eschooltoday.com
The leaves of a plant are where the magic happens. The leaves breath the carbon dioxide that is in the air and store it in little boxes called chloroplasts. Once Water and Light are available to the little boxes as well, the plant can put it all together and create a delicious meal, sugar (glucose). The sugar is also the reason why we can enjoy the beautiful sweet taste of fruits like apples, watermelons and many more.
Next to suguar the little boxes also create oxygen (o2) and release it back to the air. This is a cycle that repeats over and over again.
So basically the trees remove a bit of the co2 that is not too good for us since we have too much of it, and releases next to their food o2 in the air which is very important to all life on earth.
I hope this was helpful.