How Do Flowers Give Us Oxygen?
Plants and flowers carry out numerous chemical reactions and processes that benefit human beings, including fruit growth and supplementary supports such as vitamins and minerals. But the most important of these reactions is photosynthesis, or the conversion of carbon dioxide to sugars and oxygen. Does this Spark an idea?
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Photosynthesis
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Photosynthesis is the process by which carbon dioxide is taken in by plant cells, such as those in flowers, and converted, or "synthesized," into oxygen.
Symbiotic Relationship
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Plants and animals need each other to survive. If roses and tulips did not produce oxygen, humans could not convert that oxygen into energy and produce carbon dioxide. By the same token, if humans did not make carbon dioxide, flowers would have nothing to convert into oxygen.
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Chemical Equation
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Six carbon dioxide and six water molecules heated by the sun are converted to glucose, or sugars, and six oxygen molecules. 6 CO2 + 6 H20 + light energy = C6H12O6 + 6 O2
Chloroplast
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A chloroplast is the part of a plant cell where most of the chemical reactions in the photosynthesis process take place. A single plant cell has multiple chloroplasts to ensure maximum synthesizing.
Other Purposes
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Photosynthesis also plays a part in giving plants their green color, which results from a special chemical called chlorophyll. The cells in flowers have a different mutation of chloroplasts that gives them varying colors. These colors are determined by the genetics of individual plants, which is why flower species have almost all different colors.
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