Video narration
How can a plant grow without eating? Look at a houseplant leaning toward a bright window: sunlight is doing more than warming its leaves. It supplies energy. Here's the surprising flip: the plant is not getting food from the soil. Soil provides useful minerals, but the plant builds its food itself. It is a tiny solar-powered food maker. In its green leaves, it takes in water through its roots and carbon dioxide from the air. Then light powers a process called photosynthesis-the plant's way of turning those ingredients into sugar. That sugar can fuel growth, provide energy, or be stored for later. And there's an extra product: oxygen, released into the air. So how does a plant grow without eating? It makes its own food: sunlight turns water and carbon dioxide into sugar, while oxygen escapes.