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Summaries · Grade 5 Natural Sciences › Plants and photosynthesis
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Plants and photosynthesis

How a plant makes its own food with sunlight, and why we all depend on it. Read one part at a time and tap “I know this”. Then test yourself in the quiz.

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The plant’s kitchen

SunlightWater(roots)CO₂ from theairSugar (food)Oxygen (out)
Three things go in, two come out.

The roots take up water; the stem carries it to the leaves. The leaf takes in carbon dioxide from the air through its stomata. With the energy of sunlight the leaf makes sugar, and oxygen goes out.

A leaf makes food with sunlight.
A leaf makes food with sunlight.
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Leaves are built for light

  • Most leaves are flat and broad to catch as much sunlight as possible.
  • Plants grow towards the light: phototropism.
  • The plant uses some of the sugar and stores the rest, like a carrot in its thick root.
  • Besides light, water and air, plants also need minerals from the soil.
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Why it matters

Plants are the producers of the planet: they make food for all the other living things, and the oxygen we breathe. Forests are therefore very important for our air.

Meerkat tip

Without leaves a plant can no longer make food. In a long drought the leaves wilt.

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Remember this and test yourself

Remember this: your summary
  • Photosynthesis: the plant makes food (sugar) with sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
  • It happens mostly in the leaves; green chlorophyll catches the sunlight.
  • The plant gives off oxygen: the oxygen we breathe.
  • Gases go in and out through tiny openings under the leaf: the stomata.
  • At night photosynthesis stops; a mushroom makes no food of its own at all.

Write these points in your book. Read them again the night before the test.

Memory trick

Photo = light, synthesis = making: “making with light”. Light + water + CO₂ in → sugar + oxygen out.

Flash cards · Tap to turn over

Important words

First say what the word means, then turn the card over.

Test yourself · Part 2

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