The Water Cycle

WHAT IS THE WATER CYCLE?

Have you ever wondered, why does it rain? How does water get into the clouds? Well, it all has to do with the water cycle. The water cycle is the journey that water takes nearly every day to turn into clouds and come back down as rain.

Because the water cycle never stops it has no real beginning or end. We’ll start with the sea as it makes it easier to understand. Evaporation is when the sun heats up the water from either a puddle, lake or sea and turns it into a gas which rises as small water molecules. We can not see the water molecules because they are so small. Water off plants also turns into gas like the water from lakes, but it is called transpiration.

As the water rises up, cools and meets with other water molecules they start to turn into clouds. There are lots of different types of clouds which form depending on the wether conditions. As the water molecules meet more and more water molecules, the clouds get bigger and heavier. When clouds meet other clouds they sometimes turn into one big cloud.

When the clouds get too heavy because they carry too much water they have to let go of their load. The water molecules will turn into either water droplets, snow or hail depending on the air temperature where the cloud is at the time. This is called precipitation.

Accumulation is when the rain forms or joins a stream, river or goes down a drain and then travels down into lakes or into the sea. Some of the water will form puddles and sink into the ground and then travels through the earth until it either gets to a stream, sea or lake or goes through the process of transpiration and turns into a cloud again.

Water is an amazing substance because it can be in liquid, gas or solid form. It can also help us get electricity, helps us survive and it is reusable. The water is important to every living being and the water cycle gives us water over, and over again so that we never completely run out, and the water cycle will never stop.

by Carlotta and Flynn