Photosynthesis & Paper Making

In this episode of Beakman’s World, Beakman spends time with the same living thing wearing two different hats: a leaf that cooks food for a tree, and a sheet of paper made from that same tree once it has been cut down. Josie sorts the mail, the Beakmania round rolls out snakes, worms and disgusting food facts, and Lester gets stuck trying to fold a single sheet more than nine times.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why leaves do not really change colour in autumn, they lose one
• What chlorophyll does inside a leaf all summer long
• How a tree uses water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to make its own food
• How a cord of wood becomes paper, and why recycling it saves whole trees
• How to make a sheet of your own recycled paper at home
• Why no sheet of paper can be folded more than nine times

The tree’s double life

Beakman builds this episode around one living thing doing two very different jobs. As a leaf, a tree runs a tiny kitchen, using chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to cook its own food and hand us the leftover oxygen. As a cord of wood, that same tree becomes the raw material for paper, cellulose fibres ground down, pressed flat and printed on until somebody throws the page away, unless somebody recycles it instead. Understanding how a tree builds something out of nothing is exactly what makes the case for recycling it once it is gone.

Beakman’s demonstrations

Beakman turns photosynthesis into a cooking show, with a chef mixing a recipe of water, carbon dioxide and a dollop of chlorophyll and cooking it in sunlight until it is ready to feed a tree. Later, he tears up a sheet of newspaper, blends it with water into grey pulp, pours it over a coat hanger frame stretched with pantyhose, and lifts out a dripping sheet of homemade recycled paper to dry in the sun. He closes the show by daring Lester and the audience to fold an ordinary sheet of paper more than nine times, and everybody gets stuck at exactly the same point.

Try this at home

The homemade paper test. With an adult, tear a newspaper page into strips and then tiny squares, blend them with a cup of water in a food processor for about three minutes, then pour the pulp over a coat hanger frame stretched with old pantyhose. Lift the frame out slowly, let it drip for a minute, then hang it in the sun until completely dry before peeling off your own sheet of recycled paper.

The nine fold test. Try folding any single sheet of paper more than nine times. Because the thickness doubles with every fold, by the tenth attempt you are trying to fold more than 500 layers, an entire ream, and it simply will not bend any further.