Write a plant's letter to the Sun, signed by every leaf, about what photosynthesis would be without it.First line: Dear Sun, we know you are busy, but we have a favor to ask.
Tell the cupboard plant's week from the point of view of the saucer under its pot, who saw everything and understood nothing.Angle: the saucer reports the color fading and the stem leaning; you explain why.
Write a plant's grumble on the shortest day of winter, when the sunlight for photosynthesis is gone by late afternoon.Angle: what does it plan to do when the long days come back?
A leaf at the top of a tree and a leaf near the bottom compare jobs. Write their talk about light and photosynthesis.Angle: one has all the sun it wants; the other works with what gets through.
A leaf explains how it makes food to a kid who thinks plants eat dirt. Write the explanation.Angle: the leaf is patient; it has heard this one before.
A leaf has done photosynthesis since spring. Write what it would put on its own name tag, and why.Angle: Food Maker? Sun Catcher? Air Freshener? Let it argue for one.
A leaf is asked what it gives away for free. Write its answer about oxygen.Fact: in photosynthesis the plant releases the oxygen it makes back into the air.
A new leaf unfolds in spring and an older leaf trains it. Write the first lesson in photosynthesis.First line: Rule one: face the light. Rule two: never waste a sunny morning.
Carbon dioxide comes into a leaf through tiny pores. Write one pore's day as the doorkeeper of photosynthesis.Fact: each pore, a stoma, has a pair of guard cells that set how wide it opens.
Chlorophyll is asked why it reflects green light instead of using it. Write its answer.Fact: chlorophyll takes in blue and red light and reflects green, so the plant looks green.
Explain photosynthesis as a leaf would to a five-year-old, then as it would to a scientist.Angle: the first has no long words; the second gets to say chlorophyll.
The word chlorophyll comes from Greek. Write a leaf's speech on getting such a grand name for its green.Fact: the name comes from the Greek words for pale green and leaf.
Write a chloroplast's introduction of itself: where it lives in the leaf, and what it is in charge of.Fact: chloroplasts are small parts inside a plant's cells, and they hold the chlorophyll.
Write a leaf's answer to a caterpillar who asks what a leaf even does up there all day.Angle: the leaf is proud of photosynthesis, and the caterpillar is mostly hungry.
Write a leaf's end-of-day report to the rest of the plant: how much light came, and what photosynthesis made of it.Angle: a cloudy day and a clear day would give two very different reports.
Write a leaf's morning roll call for photosynthesis: sunlight, water, carbon dioxide. One of them is late.Angle: which one is missing, and what does the leaf do while it waits?
Write a leaf's thank-you to the roots for the water, and the roots' reply about the sugar from photosynthesis.Fact: the plant takes in water from the soil and stores energy in a sugar, glucose.
You are a leaf at a job interview. Explain photosynthesis as the work you do all day.Fact: plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to make oxygen and sugar.
Sunlight for breakfast 15
A plant has sunlight for breakfast. Write its morning from the first gray light to the first full sunbeam.First line: I felt it before I saw it: a warm edge on my highest leaf.
A plant on the kitchen windowsill watches a family eat breakfast. Write what it thinks of toast, forks and chewing.Fact: a plant takes in carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil.
A plant stores the sugar it does not use right away. Write its plan for the sugar, like a kid with a full piggy bank.Fact: plants keep the energy of photosynthesis in sugars and starches.
A plant under a streetlamp wonders if that light counts for photosynthesis. Write its experiment.Angle: let the plant guess, test and report; it does not have to be right.
A rabbit eats a clover leaf. Write how the sunlight caught by that leaf ends up in the rabbit's jump.Fact: plant eaters get the energy of photosynthesis by eating plants.
Describe the taste of sunlight as a plant might, to an animal that has only ever eaten food.Angle: is morning light different from noon light? Let the plant be picky.
Imagine you could make your breakfast from sunlight the way a plant does. Write your morning.Angle: where would you stand, and what would a cloudy day mean?
It has been cloudy for a week. Write what the plants on one windowsill say to each other about photosynthesis.Fact: the first stage of photosynthesis needs a steady stream of sunlight.
Pond scum makes food from sunlight too. Write the algae's speech demanding the same respect as a tree.Fact: algae and some kinds of bacteria carry out photosynthesis, as plants do.
Sunrise reaches a field of sunflowers. Write photosynthesis starting up leaf by leaf, like lights coming on in a town.Angle: the east edge of the field wakes first.
Two houseplants argue over the sunny end of the windowsill. Write the argument, using what each knows about photosynthesis.Angle: one was there first; the other has bigger leaves.
Write a plant's grumble on the shortest day of winter, when the sunlight for photosynthesis is gone by late afternoon.Angle: what does it plan to do when the long days come back?
Write a plant's letter to the Sun, signed by every leaf, about what photosynthesis would be without it.First line: Dear Sun, we know you are busy, but we have a favor to ask.
Write a riddle whose answer is photosynthesis. Give three clues: one about light, one about air, one about sugar.Fact: carbon dioxide from the air goes in, and oxygen comes out.
Write photosynthesis as a bedtime story a tree tells its seedlings, beginning: Once upon a time, light arrived.Fact: most life on Earth depends on photosynthesis.
A plant in a cupboard 15
A class puts one bean plant in a cupboard and its twin on the windowsill. Write your prediction for day ten, and your reasons.Fact: a plant grown without light gets long, weak stems and smaller leaves.
A cupboard holds a plant and a flashlight left switched on. One side of the plant is greener. Write the explanation.Angle: follow the beam.
A seed sprouts under a thick layer of fallen leaves. Write its climb through the dark toward the light it needs to make food.Fact: stretching in the dark helps a seedling reach light from under soil or leaf litter.
A tent stood on the lawn for a week. Write about the pale rectangle of grass it left behind, as a mystery to solve.Angle: the clue is what the grass could not do under there: photosynthesis.
After the cupboard experiment, write the three questions about photosynthesis you still cannot answer.Angle: what about a lamp? A green light? A cupboard with a window?
The cupboard door opens after a week. Write what the plant inside looks like, before anyone says a word.Angle: describe color, height and which way it leans, like a careful scientist.
The cupboard plant comes back to the windowsill and turns green again. Write its first day back at photosynthesis.Fact: the changes a pale plant goes through when it meets light are known as greening.
Design a fair test of whether a plant needs light for photosynthesis. Write the steps, and what must stay the same.Angle: same pot, same soil, same water; only the light changes.
The only light in the cupboard comes through the keyhole. Write how the plant inside finds it.Fact: in the dark a plant's growing tips are drawn to light and lengthen toward it.
Someone says the cupboard plant grew taller, so the dark must be good for plants. Write your reply.Fact: the long stems are weak; stretching only raises the chance of reaching light.
Tell the cupboard plant's week from the point of view of the saucer under its pot, who saw everything and understood nothing.Angle: the saucer reports the color fading and the stem leaning; you explain why.
Write the apology a kid sends to a houseplant after forgetting it in a cupboard over a long weekend.First line: Dear Ivy, I can explain. Actually, I cannot.
Write the science notebook for a plant kept in a cupboard: day one, day four and day eight.Fact: in the dark a plant turns pale yellow, because it lacks chlorophyll.
Write the talk between the cupboard plant and the windowsill plant when they stand side by side again.Angle: one is tall and pale, one is short and green. Who envies whom?
You may put one thing in the cupboard to help the plant inside with photosynthesis. Write what you choose, and why.Fact: photosynthesis needs light, water and carbon dioxide.
Thank a tree 15
A school thanks the tree in its yard at the end of the year. Write the card each class signs.Angle: shade, climbing and a place to read count; so does the oxygen.
A tree receives its first thank-you card for photosynthesis. Write what the card says, and what the tree thinks of it.Angle: the tree was only having lunch.
Algae in the sea do photosynthesis too. Write a thank-you note to a green thing too small to see.Fact: photosynthesis is carried out by plants, algae and some types of bacteria.
Explain to a friend why thank a tree is more than a saying, using what you know about photosynthesis.Fact: photosynthesis supplies most of the energy that complex life on Earth runs on.
Imagine photosynthesis took one day off, everywhere. Write the morning news, kept small.Angle: what do one garden, one cow and one kid notice by lunchtime?
Is planting a tree a good way to say thank you for photosynthesis? Write your opinion and one reason.Angle: say who the tree is really for: you, or someone later.
Take one deep breath outdoors, then write a thank-you to the green things that had a hand in that air.Fact: photosynthesis plays a critical role in keeping up the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.
Thank the smallest green thing you can find: moss on a wall, a weed in a crack. Write why its photosynthesis counts too.Angle: small does not mean idle.
Write a list poem called What the Leaves Made Today, about photosynthesis on one summer afternoon.Angle: sugar, oxygen, shade, a sound in the wind.
Write a thank-you note to a tree you walk past every day. Tell it what its leaves were making while you went by.Fact: plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to create oxygen as well as sugar.
Write a thank-you to a tree from a squirrel, who has several reasons.Angle: food, home and highway; the food began with photosynthesis.
Write a thank-you to the plant behind your favorite snack: wheat for a cracker, a cacao tree for chocolate, corn for popcorn.Angle: photosynthesis made the sugar; say what you made of it.
Write a toast to the plants at a dinner where every dish began with photosynthesis.Fact: animals get this energy by eating plants, or by eating the animals that did.
Write an award speech for Leaf of the Year, with the reasons photosynthesis earned it.Angle: the nominees were a lily pad, a pine needle and a blade of grass.
Write the tree's reply to all its thank-you notes for photosynthesis: what it would like from people in return.Angle: it asks for little: light, water, room.
How it works
A photosynthesis writing prompt works best when the plant does the talking. Here a leaf says in its own voice how it turns light, water and air into food, and a reader remembers the voice after the diagram is forgotten.
Read the full guide
Photosynthesis story ideas from one cupboard
Most of one group follows a single experiment: a bean plant shut in the dark while its twin stays on the windowsill. Write the prediction, the notebook, the day the door opens, the first day back in the light. The fact lines under them say what a plant really does without light, so the story can be checked against the plant.
Thank a tree
The last group is mostly thank-yous: a note to a tree you walk past, a toast at a dinner where every dish began with a leaf, a card for the plant behind a favorite snack. Each needs the writer to say what photosynthesis gave.
Give the leaf a mood first. A proud leaf and a tired leaf explain the same job differently.
Name sunlight, water and carbon dioxide once, then stop listing and tell the story.
Questions and answers
What is a good writing prompt about photosynthesis?
One that makes somebody explain it. You are a leaf at a job interview: explain photosynthesis as the work you do all day. Or write a riddle whose answer is photosynthesis, with a clue each for light, air and sugar.
What is photosynthesis in simple words?
It is how plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to make sugar and oxygen, says the National Geographic Society's education page. The plant stores energy in the sugar and releases the oxygen into the air.
Why are leaves green?
Chlorophyll, the pigment in a leaf's chloroplasts, takes in blue and red light and reflects green. One prompt asks chlorophyll why it does not use the green light too.
What happens to a plant kept in the dark?
It grows long, weak stems and smaller leaves and turns pale yellow, because it lacks chlorophyll. Botanists call this etiolation. Back in the light, the plant goes through changes known as greening.