Science: How Plants Make Their Food

Hi there This piece of content is about how plants make their food (as the title clearly suggests). Firstly an almost proven rule, is that all energy on earth comes from the sun. also by plant’s making their food i mean an energy high sugar called glucose.

The Cellular Layers Of A Leaf.

OK so here I’m going to tell you about the different cellular layers of a leaf. The first layer is what is known as the waxy cuticle this protects the leaf and prevents it from loosing a lot of water all in one go (which is bad since it needs that water). The next layer is the Epidermis, this also protects the leaf and is like a skin. After all the humans epidermis is it’s skin. It is also transparrent so that the light can get through to the next layer which is the palisade layer. This is where most of the photosynthesis takes place since these cells contain the most chloroplasts which i will talk about later. Next it’s the spongy layer. This is where the gaseous exchange in the leaf takes place since there are a lot of air spaces in this part. Then you have another epidermis at the bottom, but this layer has special holes in it called stomata (plural) and stoma (singular). These little hole let gas in and out. Water also evaporates through these holes. The are also what are called guard cells that can close and open the stomata.

What is photosynthesis and how does it work:

OK so photosynthesis as i told you before is the process in which plants make their own food. The way it works is that water is taken in through it’s roots and Carbon-Dioxide is taken in through the stomata in the leaves. The water then moves up into the leaves where its molecules gather with the Carbon-Dioxide molecules in what are called chloroplasts. These chloroplasts contain a green pigment that is called chlorophyll. The chloroplasts use chlorophyll and sunlight to change the water and carbon-dioxide into glucose (that high energy sugar i told you about), and oxygen.The word equation for this is as follows:

Water + Carbon-Dioxide = Glucose + Oxygen

And the chemical formula for this is as follows:

6H2O + 6CO2 —-> C6H12O6+ 6O2