Science

Indicator 1 and 2 Second Term, 2016

Seventh grade
Boston International School

What do plants eat?

Objective:To recognize that
although in a different way, the
process of feeding not only occurs in
humans and animals, but also in
plants.
Learning Objective: Explains how
the plants meet basic functions of
living things.

Biblical Principle
God supplies our basic needs.
Genesis 9:3
3
Every moving thing that lives shall be
food for you. I have given you all
things, even as the green herbs.

What do plants eat?

Plants make their own food in the
form of sugars using water, carbon
dioxide, and sunlight.
So what is the food that people add
to plants? Its fertilizer.
Fertilizer is a mixture of minerals, such
as potassium, calcium,and phosphorus.
It helps plants to grow, but doesnt
supply them with energy as food does.

Photosynthesis
It is the process by which a cell
captures energy in sunlight and uses
it to make food.
Plants make their own food through
the process of photosynthesis.
An organism that makes its own food
is called a producer or an
autotroph. An organism that cannot
make their own food is called a
consumer, or a heterotroph.

What happens during

photosynthesis?
During photosynthesis plants absorb
energy from the sun and use it to
convert carbon dioxide and water
into sugars and oxygen.
The photosynthesis has two stages:
First, plants capture the suns energy.
Second, plants produce sugars.

Stage 1: Capturing the Suns

energy.
This process occurs mostly in the leaves.
Recall that chloroplasts are green
organelles inside plants cells. The green
color comes from pigments, colored
chemical compounds that absorb light.
The main pigment for photosynthesis in
chloroplasts is chlorophyll.
So chlorophyll captures light energy and
converts it to a form that is used in the
second stage.

 During stage 1, water in the

chloroplasts is split into hydrogen
and oxygen. The oxygen is given off
as a waste product.

Chloroplast

Stage 2: Using energy to

make food
In this stage cells produce sugars.
Cells use hydrogen (H) that came
from splitting of water in stage 1,
carbon dioxide from the air, and the
energy from the sun to make sugars,
one of them is Glucose.
Cells use the energy in glucose to
carry out vital cells functions.

 The other product of photosynthesis

is Oxygen gas (O2). Recall that
oxygen forms during the first stage
when water molecules are split apart.
Oxygen gas exits a leaf through the
openings on its underside.

What happens to the sugars

produced in photosynthesis?
Plants cells use some of the sugars for food.
The cells break down these molecules in a
process that releases energy. This energy
can then be used to carry out the plants
functions such as growing and making seeds.
Other sugar molecules may be stored in the
plants cells for later use. When you are
eating food from plants, such as potatoes or
carrots, you are eating the plants stored
energy.

 Study for quiz: May 5th, 2016

Project presentations: May 12th (7th
Blue)
May 11th-12th (7th Red)

Respiration in plants
Plant cells respire they give out
carbon dioxide and absorb oxygen
from the air that surrounds them.
Their tissues respire just as animal
tissues do. Plants, however, dont
have lungs or a blood stream, so we
cannot say they breathe in the same
way as animals.

 Photosynthesis does the opposite of

respiration. Carbon dioxide is absorbed
and oxygen is produced.
All the parts of the plant respire, the
leaves, the stem, roots, and the flowers.
The parts above the soil get their oxygen
directly from the air through pores. The
pores in the leaves are called stomata
(singular: stoma). The pores in the
branches are called lenticels.

A plant respires all the time, day and

night, but photosynthesizes only in
the presence of sunlight.
In respiration, plants convert the
sugars back into energy for growth
and other life processes and release
energy, carbon dioxide, and water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlmgFYmbAUg