Concept · 4 steps · NESA SC4-LIV-01

Plant Systems & Photosynthesis

The one idea that makes a plant a plant — it builds its own food out of air, water and sunlight. From how a leaf factory works, all the way to greenhouses tuning the recipe and forests pulling carbon out of the sky. Four short steps, each with its own toy to play with.

1 Where it comes fromPlants make their own food from light. Slide light, carbon dioxide and water up and watch a leaf factory make glucose and puff out oxygen. 2 How to do itWhere it happens — chloroplasts and chlorophyll — the plant's transport pipes, and how to read the word equation. 3 Where it gets trickyA tree's mass comes from the air, not the soil; plants respire too; oxygen is a by-product, not the point. 4 Out in the wildProducers feed every food chain, greenhouses tune the recipe — and reasoning backwards from a plant gone pale in a cupboard.

← This concept builds on

Levels of Organisation

→ It leads to

Ecosystems & Food Webs