Video narration
How can a plant make food without eating? Think of a leaf as a tiny kitchen, not a mouth. Ingredients arrive from different places. Roots bring in water from the soil. Leaves take in carbon dioxide from the air. Inside the leaf, chlorophyll catches sunlight-the energy that powers the cooking. And here's the key: plants do not get their food from soil. They build sugar in their leaves using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. That sugar is the plant's food. It can use it right away or store it for later. Oxygen is released into the air as the meal is made. So how does a plant eat without eating? It doesn't need to. Its leaf is a tiny kitchen where sunlight turns water and carbon dioxide into sugar, with oxygen released along the way. That process is called photosynthesis.