Photosynthesis

• Producers


  Plants and algae that make their own food by converting materials found in their environment into glucose using sunlight
• Algae


  • Can be unicellular or multicellular organisms
  • Live underwater while most plants live on land
  • Do not have leaves, stems, or roots
• Consumers


  Animals that have to eat other organisms to survive, breaking down the organism during digestion to release nutrients
• Photosynthesis


  A chemical reaction in which plants take in carbon dioxide and water and change them into glucose, providing the plant with food, and releasing oxygen as a waste product
• Plants make food through the process of photosynthesis
• Photosynthesis


  1. Carbon dioxide + water (reactants)

  2. Glucose + oxygen (products)
• Photosynthesis mainly takes place in chloroplasts in the leaf cells, though a small amount happens in the stem
• Leaves and stems are green because they contain the green pigment chlorophyll
• Chlorophyll uses light from the Sun, and the energy transferred from the Sun is needed for the plant to change carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen
• How water gets into a plant


  1. Water diffuses into the root hair cells

  2. Transported around the plant in xylem tubes

  3. As water evaporates from the leaves, more water is drawn up through the plant
• How gases get into and out of a plant

  1. Carbon dioxide diffuses into the leaf through tiny holes on the underside

  2. Oxygen diffuses out through the tiny holes