Plants

Essential Understandings for Plants:

• Perhaps the most important type of life for humans on our planet are plants. Plants make the oxygen we breathe to make energy for our bodies,  as well as foods we eat, cloth and clothing, building materials, medicines, fuel, baskets and rope, paper & rubber and more. 

• Plants are multicellular eukaryotes that have cell walls made of cellulose. Plants have organelles called chloroplasts, where photosynthesis occurs. Oxygen is also produced by photosynthesis.

• Plants have reproductive organs, male reproductive organs produce sperm, and female reproductive organs produce eggs. When sperm and egg combine, seeds are produced by the plant.

• Almost all plants make food by photosynthesis. We use that food (glucose, etc.) to power our bodies through cell respiration. Only about 1% of the over 300,000 species of plants have lost (through evolution) the ability to photosynthesize.

• Plants need sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water for photosynthesis. Plants, like most other types of organisms, need oxygen for cell respiration and minerals to build proteins and other bio-molecules.

• Most plants support themselves above the ground with stiff stems in order to get light, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Most plants grow roots into the soil to absorb water and minerals.

• There are about 382,000 species of plants, of which the great majority, around 283,000, produce seeds. Flowering plants (plants that produce seeds) are the most successful type of plants on earth. About 90% of all plants on our planet are flowering plants.