How Do Plants Eat?

Rustle, rustle, listen close, Plants don't chew, plants don't bite, Plants don't swallow morning, noon, or night, But plants need food, so what's the trick? They cook their lunch inside a leaf so quick!

How do plants eat? How do plants eat? No teeth, no tongue, no wiggly feet! How do plants eat? Take a peek, They cook their food up in a leaf!

Sunlight, water, and a puff of air, Mix 'em up and a sweet thing's there! Sugar, sugar, made in a leaf! Oxygen out for me to breathe!

The roots slurp water from the dirt, slurp slurp! The leaves catch sun, and they don't burp, they beam! The little holes breathe in carbon dioxide, Three things meet and the kitchen's alive!

Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo means light, and synthesis means make, Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo-syn-the-sis! Light plus make is the leaf's own kitchen trick! Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo-syn-the-sis! Sun plus water plus air becomes a sugar kiss!

Inside the leaf there's green, green stuff, Chlorophyll, say it loud, say it tough! Chlorophyll grabs the sunbeam tight, And turns it into food in the light!

Sugar made, and bonus too! Oxygen puffs out for me and you! The plant breathes out, we breathe right in, A tree, a kid, what a perfect twin!

How do we know? How do we know? Joseph Priestley, long ago, Sealed a mouse inside a jar alone, It got sleepy, breathing air all on its own.

Then he sealed a mint plant in a jar instead, And let it sit for days on a sunny windowsill instead, The plant kept making fresh air, day by day, Until a mouse in that jar could breathe okay!

The leaf had been breathing out the air the mouse needs! The leaf had been making oxygen, patient little weeds! He measured it, he wrote it down, And that is how the news got round!

Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo-syn-the-sis! Sun plus water plus air becomes a sugar kiss! Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo-syn-the-sis! The leaves are tiny kitchens, give 'em a kiss!

Next time you walk past a tree, Wave hello, it's feeding me!