Science - Water Cycle Day 1

If you have ever ridden a bicycle, you know that the wheels on the bike go round and round. This is what is meant by the word cycle: something that goes around, or repeats. The water cycle does exactly that: water moves around the Earth in different ways, and the cycle repeats.

​I. Most of the water on Earth is found in the oceans.

a. Water in the oceans is salty, and can’t be used by plants and animals on land to survive.

b. Animals and plants on land need freshwater to survive.

II. Most of the freshwater on Earth is found in ice caps at the north and south poles

a. This water can’t be used by plants and animals.

III. Another huge reservoir, or place where water is stored, is underground.

a. Water that is in the ground is known as ground water.

b. Most of the drinking water that we use in Florida actually comes from groundwater.

​IV. On the surface of the Earth there are many lakes, ponds, rivers, marshes, and swamps.

a. These are all areas where fresh water is collected.

b. Rivers and streams move freshwater from one place to another.

c. Lakes, ponds, marshes, and swamps are all places where water collects.

​V. The Sun is the “engine” that drives the water cycle on Earth. Energy from the Sun heats the Earth.

a. As water heats, it will begin to evaporate, or turn into a gas.

• All air in the atmosphere contains some water vapor, called humidity  

• Because water vapor warmed by the Sun is warmer than the air around it, it rises in the atmosphere.

• As it rises, it begins to cool, which causes water particles to stick together, or condense.

• When this happens, tiny droplets of water begin to float in the air. When enough of these droplets are in the air, a cloud is formed.

• Condensation produces clouds.

​There are three kinds of clouds to be familiar with.

• Cirrus clouds are very high in the atmosphere, move quickly over the surface of the Earth.

a. These clouds resemble hair blowing in the wind.

• Stratus clouds are low, flat clouds that cover the sky.

• Cumulus clouds look like cotton balls floating in the sky.

• Cirrus clouds do not produce precipitation, but stratus and cumulus clouds do.

VI. Droplets of water in clouds begin to stick together

• They grow larger and larger, those droplets will get heavy

  • enough that they no longer float in the air, and will fall to the ground.

• ​Falling droplets of liquid water are called rain.

  • Rain is a form of precipitation.

  • Precipitation is an important part of the water cycle

• Some of that falling rain will fall on the oceans, some on the land.

• Some of that rain can be used by plants and animals to survive, and some will collect in rivers, lakes, marshes, and swamps.

• Some of that water will be soaked into the ground as groundwater.

• Every day this cycle repeats, all over the Earth: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, all driven by the heat of the Sun.