Video narration
How can a plant make food without a kitchen? Actually, its green leaf is a tiny kitchen. This is where photosynthesis-the process of making food-happens. Sunlight supplies the energy, but sunlight is not food by itself. Water, carried up from the roots, and carbon dioxide, taken in from the air, are the ingredients. Chlorophyll, the green substance in the leaf, captures the light energy. Inside the leaf, that energy helps change water and carbon dioxide into sugar, the plant's food. Oxygen is made too, and released into the air. But the kitchen cannot work with just one ingredient: it needs water, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, and enough light together. So, how does a plant make food without a kitchen? It uses photosynthesis: light powers its green cells to turn water and carbon dioxide into sugar, releasing oxygen.