ELI5: What is chloroplast?

Imagine you have a tiny kitchen inside a plant's leaf. This kitchen is called a chloroplast.

What does this kitchen do? It makes food for the plant! Just like you need food to play and grow, plants need food to live.

How does it make food?

• It uses sunlight, water, and air (specifically, a gas called carbon dioxide).
• It mixes these ingredients together, kind of like baking a cake.
• The sunlight is like the oven that provides the energy to cook.
• The food it makes is a type of sugar, which the plant uses as energy.

Why is this important to you?

• Because plants make the oxygen you breathe! They use carbon dioxide (which you breathe out) and turn it into oxygen.
• Plants are also food for many animals, and those animals might be food for you! So, the food made in the chloroplast eventually makes its way to your plate.