Video narration
How can a plant make food from sunlight? Think of a leaf as if it were a tiny kitchen: it needs ingredients and power to make something useful. But sunlight is not the food. It supplies energy. Chlorophyll, the leaf's green light-catching substance, captures that energy. Water travels up from the roots, while carbon dioxide comes in from the air. Soil gives the plant water and minerals, but not its sugar. Using light's energy, the leaf brings water and carbon dioxide together to make glucose, a kind of sugar. That sugar helps the plant grow or is stored for later; oxygen is released into the air. This food-making process is photosynthesis: the leaf's kitchen turns those ingredients into sugar, powered by light. So how does a plant make food from sunlight? By using light to power its tiny kitchen, where water and carbon dioxide become sugar, and oxygen escapes.