Bio BeaNs are back with another story. Try learning the parts of the chloroplast, which is an organelle ("tiny organ") in a plant cell. It contains chlorophyll (a green pigment) and is where the process of photosynthesis (making food and oxygen from carbon dioxide, water, in the presence of light) takes place.
Exploding Chloroplasts!
There was a blast, but it was too small for humans to hear it. However, the Bio BeaNs heard it and knew it wasn't good. Suddenly, many of them were thrown outward, some of them falling back into the chloroplast (structure in a plant cell) and others thrown out. The sound reverberated through them and when the spray of stroma (fluid in the chloroplast) settled, they stared bewildered at the shredded membrane of the chloroplast. The thylakoids (pancake shaped disks) were not broken. These grana (stacks of thylakoids) were still held together by the lamella (attaches grana together). But the oozing fluid was bad news.
Other chloroplasts began exploding in the leaves of the large lemonade berry bushes surrounding the arroyo. This was not even a plant that loses chloroplasts during the different seasons, it was an evergreen (green all year). What was making this occur and what would be the outcome? The Bio BeaNs needed to find some Earth Allies soon.
Justin and Josh were playing their favorite videogame, Antibodies Attack, when the Bio BeaNs materialized and began flicking their foreheads. For a second, younger brother Josh thought the game had come alive.
"What is going on?" Justin yelled as he began swatting at the BeaNs.
"Stop, stop!" the BeaNs cried. "We need you to help us. Something is happening to the plants in the arroyo by your house," announced Chrom-BeaN.
Justin turned to his brother who was staring with his mouth hanging open, just fixated on the talking BeaN. "What are you?" Justin finally asked, returning his focus back to Chrom-BeaN.
"We are beings from a different dimension, living here, on earth. Our group lives specifically in the plastids (pigment containing organelles) of plants. One type of plastid called chloroplasts are blowing up in both dimensions. We think it's spreading. We all need to enter the fray to fix the chloroplasts or our planet will die. Without chloroplasts..." Chrom -BeaN voice quieted.
Justin nodded and finished his sentence saying, "without chloroplasts there would be no photosynthesis, this means no food or oxygen for any of us."
Chrom-BeaN begged the boys, "Please help us!"
"What do we need to do?" Josh asked.
"Let's enter the fray, the area between our two worlds, and work on the problem together," Chrom-BeaN suggested.
"OK," the boys agreed.
Just then Physio-BeaN jumped into Josh's ear and another BeaN called Phyto-BeaN jumped into Justin's ear. Suddenly both boys were taken up in a vortex and all the information about plants and how they work filled their brains. They suddenly knew the structure of chloroplasts, how chloroplasts produced sugar and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water during photosynthesis and how plants protect themselves from foreign invaders. They could visualize where in the chloroplasts the light dependent and light independent processes took place and the importance of sunlight to this process. Justin knew both the thylakoid membrane and the stroma were necessary for photosynthesis to take place and for most of living things to survive. The question was, how could he help save the planet with this knowledge?
The boys reached the fray and found a giant television screen. From this screen they could see the leaf cells with chloroplasts inside. The BeaNs told the boys that they could see the big picture from the screen and lead the BeaNs to the source of the problem. We have the ability to shrink to any size, so you look from here at the whole scenario and set us moving" ordered Chrom-BeaN.
"How do we do that? I don't see a controller," Josh said.
"Don't worry" said a little photo-BeaN, we can hear your thoughts. You can use your mind as the controller.
The boys imagined all the beans shrinking, smaller than a chloroplast, fixing the tears in the green plastid. Suddenly they saw the BeaNs on the screen. They were repairing the chloroplasts. But this wasn't all they needed to do. There were bacteria in the plant's cells that were shredding the membrane of the chloroplast. The boys knew gaming tactics, but would they work here? Justin knew how the human defense system worked against bacteria from his game Antibodies Attack, but plants were different. They didn't have an immune system like ours. However, he found they could produce antimicrobials (think of it like antimicrobial soap). Also, these plants stopped producing the waxy coating on their leaves that usually protected them from microbial invaders.
The brothers worked together, Josh sending his group to the repair the chloroplasts and Justin sending his group to produce antimicrobials to wash away all the bacteria. Then the boys gathered their troops together to get the wax producing factories to get going again. They worked furiously from leaf to leaf, and scoured the whole area to make sure all the bacteria were eliminated. The leaves were thick with wax and healthy.
Finally all seemed to be in balance again. But what made this happen in the first place? Justin and Josh would continue studying with the Bio BeaNs to learn how to watch for signs, should this occur again. Justin was determined to be a Plant Physiologist and Josh thought being a Botanist would be cool. They knew it would take a lot of work, but they had to protect the plants of the world.
Some prefixes and suffixes that can help you figure out what some words mean.
Anti - against
Chloro - green
Chrom - color
Physio - body
Phyto - plant
Photo - light
-ist a person who works doing...
BeaNspiration: Sometimes it helps to learn concepts through a story! Make up your own way to remember things!
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