The ability of plants to photosynthesize lets all life on earth exist. Plants capture and store the energy of the sun in the form of highly structured carbohydrates, and also provides oxygen that animals breathe in:
6CO2 + 6H2O + Energy from the sun ® C6H12O6 + 6O2
C stands for carbon, O for oxygen, and H for hydrogen; carbon dioxide + water in the presence of energy from the sun yields carbohydrates and oxygen.
Respiration, or the release of energy when carbohydrates are broken down, is the opposite equation:
C6H12O6 + 6O2 --> 6CO2 + 6H2O + energy
I couldn't get the subscripts to work properly, but the numbers after the elements are supposed to be lower, and indicate the number of atoms of each; see the link if that is not clear.
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