Video narration
Photosynthesis is how plants make their own food using light. It mostly happens in the leaves, inside tiny parts called chloroplasts, where green pigment captures sunlight. The plant pulls water up from the roots, and carbon dioxide from the air slips in through small openings on the leaf. Using the sun’s energy, the plant rearranges water and carbon dioxide into a sugar called glucose—stored energy it can use to grow, repair itself, and build new leaves and roots. While making that sugar, the plant also releases oxygen as a leftover. So the simple recipe is: sunlight plus water plus carbon dioxide makes glucose, and oxygen comes out. Photosynthesis matters because it fuels plants, which feed most life on Earth, and it keeps our air rich in oxygen.