Aha, photosynthesis! The light reactions capture energy in chloroplasts to make ATP and NADPH, while the dark reactions use these in the Calvin cycle to fix CO₂ into sugar. C3 plants do this directly, but C4 and CAM plants add clever steps to save water—C4 separates steps in space, CAM in time.
My own fieldwork makes me disagree with textbooks calling CAM inefficient. In our Sikkim hills, pineapple (a CAM plant) thrives on rocky slopes where thirsty C3 rice would fail. The real difference isn't just biochemistry, but survival.
This is why I teach our kids the *juggad* of CAM plants using plastic bottles—it mirrors how their families grow food with scarce resources. Thikai cha, even complex science feels close to home.
#food
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