ONCE UPON A TIME...

A father plant and a baby plant were lying out in the sun light. The baby plant saw two deer grazing on the grasses of the valley.

"Daddy, why don't we eat food like animals do?" baby Michael asked.

"Well Mikey, son, that's a long story," his father Jim started to explain.

"Well first of all, we have many cells, they involve many things." said Jim.

"What's inside of a cell?" said Michael.

"There's the nucleus is the most important part of a cell! It holds all the information a cell needs."

"Wow, thats amazing! Tell me more!!" Said Michael.

"There is also a cell wall that doesn't let anything go in and out that doesn't need to. There is also the chloroplast..." Explained Jim

"The chloroplast is a special part of a cell where energy is captured. They have many several parts including Thylakoids which are sac-like membranes and stacks of those are called Grana. The liquids that are inside of the chloroplast are called stroma."

"That's so cool dad! Tell me more!" Michael said with utmost excitement.

"There are two types of energy transfers. Light independent, Light dependent. Light dependent reactions take light energy and turn it into ATP and NADPH. Light independent reactions do not require light."

"If light independent reactions don't need light, does it only occur at night?" Michael was very interested in this conversation.

"Not only does it happen when the sun is sleeping, but also when we are soaking it all up! This is happening because of cellular respiration."

"After the light reactions there is also a dark reactions." Jim started to explain, "it occurs in the stoma. The ATP gives energy to NADPH. We get it from carbon dioxide.

"So there's light and dark reactions?" asked Michael.

"Yes there is, there is also so much more!" Said Jim.

"There is the H2O storage. The purpose of this system is to make sure that us plants always have water in our system," said Jim.

"OH! I know about this. It's where water stays in an area until it's need on a sunny day. It continues to collect water so they never run out!" Michael said.

"Good job, Michael! Ready to learn some more?"

"Yes!" Said Michael.

"The energy transfers we talked about all happen in something called the thylakoid membrane. Here, the pigment reflects green light which is why we look green!" Jim said rather enthusiastically.

"That's amazing dad! What's all in this, uh, thyla-thingy?"

"It contains the chloroplast, the pigments, and the electron transport chains."

"Oh, cool! What's an electron transport chain?"

"There are many different parts happening with in the electron transport, let's start by talking about photosystem II."

"Now, we're on to photosystem II. It happens before photosystem I. It makes NADPH. All of that goes into the Calvin cycle!" Said Jim

"Why is photosystem II first, dad?" asked Michael.

"It's first because it was discovered before photosystem I," explained Jim.

"Now tell me about photosystem I!"