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Plant hormones, also known as plant growth factors, are chemical substances that accelerate, inhibit or otherwise affect growth. This animation looks at how the action of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), the most common form of auxin, works and how we discovered what auxins do.

Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities. This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water.

Life processes depend on biological molecules, whose structure is related to their function. Did you know that living organisms are actually made from quite a small group of molecules? What do you think the most common molecule in you is? It is actually water. About 55 to 60% of a human adult’s body weight comes from water. And in some organisms it can be up to 90% of their body weight!! [could show jellyfish here] Your muscles and kidneys are particularly ‘watery’ at 79%, but even your bones have 31% water. Bet you didn’t expect that! Does that mean we really can walk on water?! Ok, I’m done with the water for now. Imagine I removed all of the water from your body. What would be left? Well it would pretty much just be proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids such as DNA. So what are these all made of? Well both carbohydrates and lipids are really simple; they both just contain three elements… carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

Step inside the trunk of a tree to follow the path water takes from the deepest roots to the very top of a Douglas fir. Data Sources: River and Stream Data: U.S. Geological Survey, California Land Cover Spatial Data: U.S. Department of the Interior National Gap Analysis Program. For classroom activities, visit www.calacademy.org/educators/habitat-earth-in-the-classroom - - - The California Academy of Sciences is a renowned scientific and educational institution dedicated to exploring, explaining, and sustaining life on Earth. Based in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, it's the only place in the world to house an aquarium, planetarium, rainforest, and natural history museum—plus cutting-edge research programs—all under one living roof.