My golf trip in florida

The first thing I noticed when I saw the golf course was how beautiful it was. Then I looked closer and saw that the whole course was filled with vast areas of green grass, trees, shrubs and plants. In the picture to the left you see me surrounded by lush green grass and trees. I than thought to myself, this whole golf course is performing photosynthesis.


I asked Ollie how photosynthesis works and he told that photosynthesis is the process of converting light energy to chemical energy and storing it in the bonds of sugars. This process occurs in plants and they need light energy, CO2, and H2O to make sugar. Then he told me that it all starts in the Thylakoid membrane. Light hits the membrane and gets excited. The light then passes through various steps and NADP plus and H plus get added to form NADPH. While this is happening ATP is being made through ATP synthase. The ATP and the NADPH then get shipped off to the Calvin cycle. In the Calvin cycle 4 steps occur. Step 1 is when an inorganic carbon joins a RuBP. The molecule it makes is unstable and splits. In step 2 ATP gives carbons energy and the NADPH gives it a hydrogen and two electrons, changing it to G3P. In step 3 one molecule of G3P goes off to become sugar. This sugar is then used as energy in the human body. These sugars are the products of photosynthesis. Now, there are 5 G3P's left. In step 4 the 5 G3P's are converted into RuBP's with the help of ATP.

After hearing all that from Ollie, I had a pretty good understanding of Photosynthesis. I asked, why are the plants green ? Ollie stated that plants are green because of pigment. A pigment is a molecule that absorbs light. Chlorophyll, which is inside a leaf, is a pigment which absorbs all colors except green. When a pigment absorbs light, the human eye only sees what is reflected back to the eye. In the case of chlorophyll, it reflects green so the human eye sees the plants as being green. After hearing this I totally knew everything there was about photosynthesis and why the golf course was so green. The only thing left to do was to learn how to play golf !