Green Giant Footprints

Supplies:

17" x 11" piece of white construction paper | grass

markers, crayons or colored pencils

It's best to do this one in the morning in the summertime, when the dew is still on the grass:

Put the piece of white construction paper on the grass outside.

Step with one foot onto the paper. Step down firmly, and push the bottom of the paper into the grass. Try NOT to move your foot around on the paper.

Now lift up the paper. What do you see?

You should see a green footprint! That's because the pressure of your foot on the paper collected some special green stuff from the grass.

The green stuff is called chlorophyll (KLOR oh fill). It is a pigment - a substance that gives something color. For example, you have pigment in your skin that gives it a certain shade of tan or brown.

Well, all plants - all flowers, all trees, all members of the plant family - have chlorophyll. That's why they are all green.

Chlorophyll is vitally important in the process that plants use to make their own food. They use carbon dioxide, which is part of our air, as well as water (usually rain) and sunlight. The chlorophyll manufactures the food the plant needs with these ingredients.

This food-manufacturing process is called photosynthesis (fo to SIN thuh sis).

If plants didn't have chlorophyll, they couldn't make their own food, and then since humans and animals rely heavily on plants for food, WE wouldn't have any food, either. And that would be a MAJOR BUMMER!

Now, on the construction paper around your footprint, draw a picture of a Jolly Green Giant. Add some pictures of flowers, trees, plants and leaves that depend on chlorophyll.