"Where am I? Ugh, I'm starving, but I don't think I can find ..."
"any food in here. Wish I could be just like the plants..."
"Who can make their own food. In that way.."
"I won't ever be hungry.."
Have you ever wondered where most of the food
you eat come from?
well you eat more carbohydrates. As you
can tell from its name, Carbohydrates
contain Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen. But where do
these originally come from? it starts
from the air that you exhale at this very moment
*exhales* Carbon dioxide molecules. Plants
are going to breathe in the same molecules
in their pores called "stomata". Plants drink
and water from their roots to get the
needed oxygen and hydrogen atoms and
their electrons in order to build
carbohydrates. This is one of the
organelles in a plant cell. It is green in
color because it has a special light
absorbing pigment called chlorophyll
Each leaf has about 44,000 cells and any
cell can have between 20 to 100
chloroplasts. By now you've probably
guessed that we're talking about the
process called PHOTOSYNTHESIS and you
might be wondering where the sunlight
makes its entrance
let's go back to the original molecule
of water. The plants have to split the
molecule of water so they can get
electrons from it, but the plant can't pull
that water apart by itself. It needs help
from the high energy rays from the Sun
so now. that the chloroplast has all the building
blocks carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, electrons
it's time to go to the rest of the
processes of photosynthesis, to transform
the original carbon dioxide gas into a
simple carbohydrate called "glucose" ; C6H12O6
C6H12O6.. now the glucose helps build bigger and
better carbohydrates. So you see, when we
eat plants we actually benefit from photosynthesis
The plants make things like starch and
then break it back down into glucose
then, the mitochondrion in our cells, powered
by the oxygen we breathe can turn
glucose into pure energy molecules
called ATP. ATP powers each and everyone
of your cells
Plants also have mitochondria in
their cells, to break down the glucose they
make into ATP.
As you can see, humans and plants are somehow
connected. The air we breathe out are
used by plants to make carbohydrates that
we eat, and in the process they release
oxygen molecules that we need to breathe in
in order for our mitochondria to break
down our delicious snacks... The light
dependent reaction is a reaction that
captures energy from sunlight which
takes place within and across the
membrane of the thylakoids. First,
chlorophyll absorbs energy from sunlight
the energy is transferred along the
thylakoid membrane. H2O molecules are
broken down and O2 (Oxygen) molecules are
released. Then, the energy carried along the thylakoid
membrane is transferred to
molecules that carry energy such as ATP
Light independent reactions are
reactions that use energy from the
light-dependent reactions to make sugars
which occurs in the "stroma" of
chloroplasts. First, CO2 is added to a
cycle of chemical reactions to build
larger molecules. Then a molecule of a
simple sugar is formed the sugar usually
glucose, stores some of the energy that was
captured from sunlight...The arrows between the reactants and the products, tells that photosynthesis has many steps.
The light independent reactions need
only one molecule
of CO2, and the six carbon sugars comes from a reaction
combines the three carbon sugars.
Also, enzymes and other chemical are needed.
Plants need the simple sugars to build starch and cellulose molecules.
In effect, plants need photosynthesis for the growth and development.
"Wow, learning about photosynthesis was so cool! Let me grab some food now."
