How Do Plants Eat?

[rustle rustle] 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 GULP! The little holes drink carbon dioxide — Three things meet and the kitchen's wide!

Photo-syn-the-sis! Photo-syn-the-sis! (That's a big word — it means "make light into this!") 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!

[pop] 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, Put a mouse inside a jar — it gasped! Put a mint leaf in — the mouse perked back fast!

The leaf was breathing out the air the mouse needs! The leaf was making oxygen — fancy 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!

[rustle] Next time you walk past a tree Wave hello — it's feeding me!