Video narration
How can a leaf make its own food from sunlight? Imagine a leaf on a tree or your houseplant, sitting in a bright patch of sun. Inside that leaf, photosynthesis is the process that uses light to make sugar. But here's the flip: sunlight isn't the food. It supplies the energy to make it. The leaf takes in water, carried up from the roots, and carbon dioxide from the air around it. Its green parts capture the light, and that energy helps the leaf turn those ingredients into sugar. That sugar is food the plant can use, with the captured energy stored in it. As the leaf makes it, oxygen is released into the air. So sunlight gives the leaf energy, not a meal. That leaf makes sugar from water and carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen along the way.