🔬 ScienceGrade 2Lesson 3
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How Plants Make Food
Lesson preview: the Mini Lesson and Vocabulary are open to everyone. Guided practice, exercises, the parent checklist and the printable PDF worksheet come with full access (free 7-day trial or membership).
Learning Objectives
- 1Explain how plants make their own food through photosynthesis
- 2Name the three ingredients a plant needs — sunlight, water, and air
- 3Describe what the plant produces — sugar and oxygen
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Mini Lesson
You need to eat food to get energy — but plants don't visit a grocery store! They make their own food using something called photosynthesis.
The three ingredients
- Plants need sunlight (energy from the sun).
- They need water (taken in by the roots and sent up the stem).
- They need air — specifically a gas called carbon dioxide, which enters through tiny holes in the leaves.
Where does it happen?
- Photosynthesis happens inside the leaves.
- Leaves are green because of a special substance called chlorophyll, which captures sunlight.
What does the plant make?
- The plant makes sugar — its food — and uses it to grow.
- It also releases oxygen into the air as a bonus — the same oxygen we breathe!
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Ask yourself: What three things does a leaf need? What does it make? What gas does it release?
Vocabulary
Photosynthesis
The process plants use to make food from sunlight, water, and aire.g. Green leaves perform photosynthesis every sunny day.
Chlorophyll
A green substance in leaves that captures sunlighte.g. Leaves look green because of chlorophyll.
Sunlight
Light energy from the sun that plants need to make foode.g. A sunny window helps a houseplant grow.
Carbon dioxide
A gas in the air that plants take in through their leavese.g. People breathe out carbon dioxide; plants use it.
Oxygen
A gas released by plants during photosynthesis; animals breathe ite.g. Forests give off large amounts of oxygen.
Sugar
The food plants make during photosynthesise.g. Plants store extra sugar in their roots and fruits.
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