Photosynthesis
Plants make their own food. In their chloroplasts they use light energy to turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose. Oxygen is given off along the way, the oxygen you breathe in.
Why
An oak weighs thousands of kilos, but the ground around its trunk hasn't sunk. So where does all that wood come from?
You might think a tree builds itself out of soil. Yet the soil in a flowerpot stays almost the same weight, even when the plant in it grows for years. Most of the tree comes from something you can't see: carbon dioxide from the air, together with water from the ground.
Sunlight provides the energy to make sugar from those two substances. From that sugar the plant builds wood, leaves and fruit. And what it has left over, it breathes out: oxygen. So every breath you take has something to do with a leaf.
Opening Kaft Plus…
Kaft Plus
The rest of “Photosynthesis” is in Kaft Plus
The learning path and the first 3 topics of Vonk are free. Kaft Plus opens every topic and exercise.
Already have Kaft Plus? The same button signs you in and brings you straight back.