water cycle school homework

7 Amazing Ideas for Teaching the Water Cycle

The water cycle is the process by which water evaporates from the Earth’s surface, rises into the atmosphere, and falls back down to the surface as precipitation.

In this post, we explore 7 fun and engaging ideas for teaching kids about the water cycle. From hands-on investigations and activities to stations and task cards, these ideas will help kids learn about the water cycle in a meaningful and interactive way.

1. Observe a Water Cycle Baggie

This idea is an oldie, but a goodie. 

It’s important for students to understand how the Sun and ocean interact in the water cycle. Water at the surface of the ocean evaporates and rises due to energy from the Sun. It becomes water vapor.

As the water vapor cools during condensation into liquid water, it gathers together in clouds. Then the liquid water falls as precipitation .

1. Draw the water cycle carefully on a baggie using a Sharpie. Don’t push too hard or your bag might rip!

Include the sun, a cloud, and the ocean. Also write the processes.

2. When you’re done writing, add some water to the bag, seal it shut, and tape it to the window.

3. Observe your water cycle baggie for a few days. You’ll see the evaporation and condensation right before your very eyes!

4. Be sure to have students record their observations and draw their water cycle baggies in their science notebooks!

2. Flip with a Water Cycle Flipbook

Need a NO PREP science review activity? Make a flip book to review the water cycle!

This flip book is easy to assemble and fun to create with students as they wrap up their learning.

Accompany this activity with a video from our friend at  Mad Garden Science  on YouTube.

See it on TPT: Water Cycle Flipbook

3. Weather and Water Stations

Study the water cycle alongside weather and climate with 9 easy prep station activities. This is a particularly great option if you’re short on time during your weather and water unit!

See it on TpT!  Weather and Water Stations

5. Dive Deep with the Clouds Phenomena-based Science Unit

Teach your students the details of cloud formation and how clouds can help us predict the weather with this full unit! 

You’ll  use a cloud window to observe the weather each day, make predictions about the weather based on cloud types, support a claim with evidence and reasoning, and even make a cloud in a jar!

See it on TpT!  Clouds and Weather Unit

6. Roll the Dice with a Water Cycle Cube Simulation

This activity is a simulation game in which students move through the water cycle as a drop of water.  The activity I used is no longer available but you can find something similar  here .

6. Assess with Water Cycle Task Cards

When it’s time to check for understanding, you’ll want to have some task cards on hand. I use two different sets– one for vocabulary and one with more rigorous questions for test prep.

See them on TpT! 

Water Cycle Vocabulary Task Cards

Water Cycle Test Prep Task Cards

7. Enrich with a Water Cycle Digital Choice Menu

Use as enrichment! This digital choice board is perfect for advanced students who crave new learning and want to dive a little deeper into the topic of study.

The work is done for you to just assign and go! 

See it on TPT:   Water Cycle Digital Choice Menu

Top Teaching Tools

Try out these top teaching tools to help your students learn all about the water cycle!

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5 thoughts on “7 amazing ideas for teaching the water cycle”.

Thanks for sharing these great ideas! I always like to follow up my version of the water cycle simulation by having my students (2nd grade) create a comic strip that follows their “journey” as they share these stories they see the patterns. I love teaching the water cycle, so many great experiences!

Love the comic strip!

Thanks for sharing the Ocean Notebook freebie!

Love the Water Cycle simulation cubes idea, but where do you find the cubes?

• Pingback: Water/Water cycle | Pearltrees

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Home » Worksheets » The Amazing Water Cycle: 9 Best Interactive Worksheets for Kids

The Amazing Water Cycle: 9 Best Interactive Worksheets for Kids

Teaching students about the water cycle is fun, but the vocabulary that goes along with the subject can be tough, and using a water cycle worksheet can help. Whether your students are stuck on transpiration or they’re still learning the different types of precipitation, the water cycle worksheets we’ve listed below can help your students take their understanding to the next level. 

Table of Contents

What to look for in a water cycle worksheet, 9 best water cycle worksheets, where to find water cycle worksheets online, free vs. paid worksheets, why teach simple.

When searching for the right water cycle worksheet for your students, you’ll want to look for: 

• Clear, concise diagrams that guide students through every step of the process
• Questions that require students to think through and explain the process, rather than just recite the steps
• Level-appropriate questions, such as how the addition of a pollutant may affect the water cycle for more advanced classes
• Beginner’s Water Cycle Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching

This water cycle worksheet is a perfect introduction to the water cycle for elementary students. This worksheet can be used on its own or as part of a lesson , where you and your students fill out each stage of the cycle as a team. Younger students can also color the diagram while discussing how water moves through each part of the cycle.

• Middle Grades Water Cycle Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching

In this water cycle worksheet, students get to see the water cycle in action. This activity is a good fit for a multi-day activity, as students need to leave the time for the condensation step of the water cycle to occur. Students can complete this activity on their own or in groups. This activity can also be completed at home over a weekend if students are given the supplies (container and a sheet of plastic wrap) ahead of time.

• Water Cycle Diagram Worksheet From Liveworksheets

This advanced water cycle diagram worksheet is a fun way for students to work their way through the process of the water cycle. To bulk up this activity, ask students to write a paragraph about how water moves through the cycle, explaining the details of how water molecules progress through each step. 

• Water Cycle Stage Matching Activity From Kids Academy

This matching activity is a great way for students to review the stages of the water cycle, and can be used as a warm up activity at the beginning of class or as a simple homework assignment. To push students, ask them to also identify where transpiration occurs in the water cycle. 

• Advanced Water Cycle Diagram Worksheet From 99 Worksheets

This higher-level worksheet is a good fit for students who have a solid understanding of the water cycle. This worksheet can be used as an assessment or as a way for students to dig in to their knowledge of the water cycle. It’s a good idea to go over this worksheet as a class, as there are multiple correct answers for some of the blanks.

• Fill-In-the-Blank and Diagram Water Cycle Worksheet From iSL Collective

This worksheet helps students attack the water cycle in two different ways: by filing in the blanks by filling terms into the correct places in the text, and then writing the name of each step in the diagram. This worksheet can also work as an assessment. 

• Draw And Label Worksheet From The Mailbox

In this worksheet, students both label each step of the water cycle and draw a picture to show what the process looks like. The worksheet also includes a bonus activity for students who want to go the extra mile. 

• Higher-Level Matching Water Cycle Worksheet From English Bix

This higher-level worksheet delves into the more complicated aspects of the water cycle, including sublimation. This worksheet is a great way to assess prior knowledge of the water cycle for older students, allowing you to find and address misunderstandings. 

• Middle School Water Cycle Cause And Effect Worksheet From Great Schools

This worksheet can provide students with an introduction to the water cycle, or can be used as a review for students who have already gone through a lesson on the topic. This worksheet can help teachers dig into whether their students understand the material, as students must explain the why behind their reasoning.

Good news for busy teachers: when it comes to finding worksheets online, you’ve got plenty of options. Check out these sources for finding the right science worksheets for your classroom: 

• Teach Simple
• Live Worksheets
• Education.com
• Teachers Pay Teachers

It can be tough to decide whether you want to use free or paid worksheets for your students. While free worksheets are obviously the money-saving options, paid worksheets are often more easily customizable and help teachers sharing their knowledge get paid for their work. 

At Teach Simple, we’re here to support all that you do in the classroom. Whether you’re searching for lesson plans or the perfect water cycle worksheet to help your students boost their skills, we’ve got you covered. Sign up for a free account today to explore how we can support student achievement. We hope you find the perfect water cycle worksheet to help your students learn every step, from condensation to evaporation.

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Dayna is a writer and former high school teacher, with experience working with general and special education students. She received her BA from University of Missouri, and later attended UGA, where she received her Georgia state teaching certificate.

We have a lot of interesting articles and educational resources from a wide variety of authors and teaching professionals.

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The Water Cycle

Did you know that there is no new water on Earth? It all gets recycled and reused in a process that we call the water cycle. Read a bit of information on each state of the cycle, and then fill in the blank labels!

What Is the Water Cycle?

Water can be found all over Earth in the ocean, on land and in the atmosphere. The water cycle is the path that all water follows as it moves around our planet.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Data source: NASA's Earth Observatory

On Earth, you can find water in all three states of matter: solid , liquid and gas . Liquid water is found in Earth’s oceans, rivers, lakes, streams—and even in the soil and underground. Solid ice is found in glaciers , snow, and at the North and South Poles . Water vapor—a gas—is found in Earth’s atmosphere.

How does water travel from a glacier to the ocean to a cloud? That’s where the water cycle comes in.

The Water Cycle

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Sun’s heat causes glaciers and snow to melt into liquid water. This water goes into oceans, lakes and streams. Water from melting snow and ice also goes into the soil. There, it supplies water for plants and the groundwater that we drink.

Snow falling on a glacier during winter months usually replaces any water that melts away in the summer. However, due to Earth’s overall warming , most glaciers today are losing more ice than they regain, causing them to shrink over time.

How does water get into the atmosphere? There are two main ways this happens:

• Heat from the Sun causes water to evaporate from oceans, lakes and streams. Evaporation occurs when liquid water on Earth’s surface turns into water vapor in our atmosphere.
• Water from plants and trees also enters the atmosphere. This is called transpiration .

Warm water vapor rises up through Earth’s atmosphere. As the water vapor rises higher and higher, the cool air of the atmosphere causes the water vapor to turn back into liquid water, creating clouds. This process is called condensation .

When a cloud becomes full of liquid water, it falls from the sky as rain or snow—also known as precipitation . Rain and snow then fill lakes and streams, and the process starts all over again.

Clouds, like these over the savannah in Nairobi, Kenya, form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses back into liquid water. Credit: Department of State

Why Do We Care About the Water Cycle?

We care about the water cycle because water is necessary for all living things. NASA satellites orbiting Earth right now are helping us to understand what is happening with water on our planet.

Water in the Soil

Humans need water to drink, and to water the plants that grow our food. NASA has a satellite called SMAP —short for Soil Moisture Active Passive —that measures how much water is in the top 2 inches (5 cm) of Earth’s soil . This can help us understand the relationship between water in the soil and severe weather conditions, such as droughts.

Water in the Atmosphere

NASA’s CloudSat mission studies water in our atmosphere in the form of clouds. CloudSat gathers information about clouds and how they play a role in Earth’s climate. Also, the international satellite called the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) observes when, where and how much it rains and snows on Earth.

Water in the Oceans

As Earth’s climate becomes warmer, land ice at the North and South Poles starts melting. The water then flows into the ocean, causing sea level to rise. NASA’s Jason-3 mission—short for Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network-3 —orbits Earth collecting information about sea level and ocean temperature. This helps track how the ocean responds to Earth’s changing climate.

NASA is also tracking how Earth’s water moves all around our planet. This is the work of the GRACE-FO —or Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow On —mission. It tracks the movement of water from one month to the next, and can even measure changes in deep groundwater hundreds of feet below Earth’s surface.

NASA’s Aqua satellite also collects a large amount of information about Earth’s water cycle, including water in the oceans, clouds, sea ice, land ice and snow cover.

Related NASA Missions

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The water cycle.

Below, you'll find some helpful information and links to experiments and resources about the water cycle for use in the classroom or at home. We hope these resources help you introduce the importance of clean, safe water to your students.

The Water Project is dedicated to providing clean, safe water to people in the developing world who suffer needlessly without it. We hope you'll introduce our work to your students or classmates.

The Water Cycle - What is It?

Read more here »

Interactive Water Cycle Presentation A flash animated activity that lets you control the water cycle as you learn. (FLASH Required)

The USGS Water Cycle Presentation (No Flash Needed)

Water Cycle Downloadable Poster

Create a Mini Water Cycle Create a mini water cycle using a bowl, a mug, some plastic wrap and a rubber band to show how evaporation, condensation and precipitation occur in a closed system.

The Water Cycle & The Water Crisis (PDF) Learn what happens when the water cycle doesn't work for people. Discover how simple interventions can restore balance in the system and how you can help.

Evaporation

All Dried Up A simple experiment showing how evaporation rates are different based on the amount of light a cup of water receives.

The Case of the Disappearing Water (PDF) This lesson includes a story about a missing person where one of the few clues is a cup of water that has partially evaporated. Students must conduct an experiment to see how long it takes for the given amount of water to evaporate in order to find out where the missing person is located. While meant for grades 4-6, the story could easily be rewritten for older grades as a "forensic science" case.

Water Purification by Evaporation and Condensation (PDF) An activity to illustrate how the water cycle helps to purify water.

Condensation

Make a Cloud in a Bottle Highlighting the concepts of air pressure and temperature in cloud making, this experiment uses a burnt match and some water to create a cloud inside of a plastic bottle. Due to the use of matches an adult is necessary.

Precipitation

The Rainmaker This experiment uses a burner to heat water and a cookie tray of ice cubes above it to show how water vapor turns into precipitation like rain.

Collection (and Conservation)

Leaky Faucets Matter This activity challenges students to be more aware of leaks in their house by showing just how much water can be lost through a single leaky faucet over time.

** PLEASE NOTE: All of the links in the "Resources" section of our website are provided for your convenience. The Water Project, Inc. does not endorse any of the linked content. The owners and creators of the content on these third-party sites are solely responsible for that content. If you have concerns about any of these links, please note its URL and contact us here .

FREE K-12 standards-aligned STEM

curriculum for educators everywhere!

Find more at TeachEngineering.org .

• TeachEngineering
• Water Cycle: Moving without Wheels

Hands-on Activity Water Cycle: Moving without Wheels

Grade Level: 5 (4-6)

Time Required: 45 minutes

Expendable Cost/Group: US $10.00

Group Size: 28

Activity Dependency: None

Subject Areas: Earth and Space

NGSS Performance Expectations:

Curriculum in this Unit Units serve as guides to a particular content or subject area. Nested under units are lessons (in purple) and hands-on activities (in blue). Note that not all lessons and activities will exist under a unit, and instead may exist as "standalone" curriculum.

• One World Ocean
• Can You Catch the Water?
• Snow vs. Water
• Break the Tension
• Shades of Gray(water)
• Designing Ways to Get and Clean Water
• What's Gotten Into You?
• The Dirty Water Project: Design-Build-Test Your Own Water Filters

TE Newsletter

Engineering connection, learning objectives, materials list, worksheets and attachments, more curriculum like this, introduction/motivation, vocabulary/definitions, troubleshooting tips, activity extensions, activity scaling, user comments & tips.

Once a pollutant is introduced into the environment, it is possible, but generally very difficult, to clean up. In some situations, bioremediation, or cleaning up pollutants through the use of microbes (bacteria, plants), is the best approach. Civil and environmental engineers design the distribution systems and bioreactors to implement the bioremediation process using specific microbes identified by biochemists to remove or neutralize contaminants in soil or water. Similarly, civil engineers design water and waste treatment plants to assure clean water in every community.

After this activity, students should be able to:

• Define and provide examples of evaporation, condensation and precipitation.
• Understand and explain how a simple water cycle model can be used to model pollution transport.
• Understand and explain how the water cycle is related to air pollution.
• Begin to understand some ways that engineers use and interact with the water cycle.

Educational Standards Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards. All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN) , a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org). In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g. , by state; within source by type; e.g. , science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc .

Ngss: next generation science standards - science.

State Standards

Colorado - science.

View aligned curriculum

Do you agree with this alignment? Thanks for your feedback!

To create one ecosystem:

• 12-inch frying pan
• glass bowl; one with a narrow base works best
• aluminum pie tin
• 1 quart of cubed or crushed ice (not block ice)
• small household fan, 4-6-inch diameter is best
• hot plate or stove top
• food coloring; dark color is best
• (optional) aluminum foil
• Water Cycle Worksheet , one per student

Once a pollutant is introduced into the environment, it is possible, but generally very difficult, to clean up. Engineers are very helpful in this regard. Bioremediation , or cleaning up pollutants through the use of microbes , is a growing field. While biochemists are responsible for determining the microbe to use for a specific task, civil or environmental engineers design the distribution systems and bioreactors to implement the bioremediation.

The ground water in Tuba City, AZ, became contaminated from the tailings of a nearby uranium mine. Engineers at States Filter Corporation designed an evaporation system to cleanse nearly one billion gallons of groundwater. Their evaporation system does, in effect, just what this activity does: It heats polluted water so that the water evaporates away and leaves the pollutants behind. The system designed for this cleanup process is vastly more efficient than the simple process used in this class demonstration. In Tuba City, water is evaporated in a vacuum, which eliminates atmospheric pressure and thus lowers the boiling point of the water to approximately 140 ºF. Next, the evaporated water is condensed in such a way that the heat from the gaseous water is removed and returned to help heat liquid water, conserving even more energy. The clean water is returned to the aquifer , while the concentrated waste-water is directed to large evaporation ponds, where the water is evaporated by the Arizona sun, and the pollutants left behind—exactly as in this activity! This is just one example of the many ways that engineers work to repair the damage caused by pollution.

Before the Activity

• Find an area or workspace in which all students have a clear view since this activity is a demonstration to show the entire class the water cycle.
• Gather materials and make copies of the Water Cycle Worksheet , one per student.

With the Students

• Place the frying pan on the hotplate filled with water, but do not turn on the hotplate. Explain to the students that this is the "lake" for your ecosystem.
• Fill the glass bowl with ice and water. Explain to the class that you are going to hold the bowl of ice water above the boiling water. Explain to students that this will be the "cloud" for your ecosystem.
• (Optional) Use the aluminum foil to create a " watershed " underneath the "cloud." Set up a channel of foil so that any water falling from the cloud drips onto the watershed and can be directed into the aluminum pie tin (" reservoir ").
• Hold the bowl ("cloud") above the pan, but slightly off-center. Position the aluminum pie tin beneath the cloud (or "watershed" if you made one) to act as a reservoir.
• Set up the fan approximately two feet from the frying pan so as much steam as possible hits the "cloud" (optimize this distance once steam is being formed). This serves as the "wind."
• Turn on the hot plate and watch for steam. While the water heats, it is a good time to ask students what they know about the water cycle and what they think will happen in the experiment. Explain that the hot plate heats the water so that it evaporates into the air — just like the sun dries up a puddle. The steam condenses on the bottom of the bowl of ice. This is just how a cloud is formed when water droplets condense in the air. The winds blow the small drops around so that they collide with one another. During these collisions, some drops combine with others making bigger and bigger drops. When the drops become so large that the winds cannot keep them in the sky, the drops fall as rain or snow, known as precipitation . This is similar to the large drops falling from the bottom of the bowl.
• Once steam starts to form, turn on the fan ("wind"), and adjust its position so that it gently blows the steam towards the bowl ("cloud"). Once the water is boiling, hold the bowl of ice over the steam. The steam condenses on the bottom of the bowl. (You want the water to drip into the foil when it condenses.)
• If all goes well, the steam is blown by the fan to the cloud, condenses on the cloud, drips to the watershed, and flows into the reservoir. It may take a while to get a significant amount of water in the reservoir.
• Take some time to observe and share what is happening (see Figure 1). Ask some questions: What is happening to the boiling water? What do you see happening on the bottom of the bowl? What do you see happening in the bowl of ice water? How does the water get on the outside of the bowl? Are the water drops on the side of the bowl the same size? Why? Which drops are falling from the bowl? Why? Which drops look like rain? Which drops look like a cloud? How are the big drops formed?

• Put a few drops of food coloring, representing pollution, into the frying pan, representing the lake, and one drop in the aluminum pie tin, representing a reservoir. Describe this as a simulation of some type of point source of pollution, such as a factory, manufacturing plant or illegal dumping (see Figure 2).

• Let the cycle continue until a significant amount of water accumulates in the reservoir. Have students watch the color change in the reservoir as it progresses.
• Ask if the water collected in the reservoir is colored anymore. (It should not be!) Ask why this is a GOOD thing. (Answer: The water cycle can help dilute some pollution in certain areas. It also means that the pollution from the lake was not transported to the reservoir—great news!) .
• Ask why this is also a BAD thing. If students get stuck, ask them to look in the frying pan after most of the water has boiled out (noticing that a lot of food coloring is left behind). (Answer: Many pollutants DO NOT evaporate with water and follow the water cycle—this is bad because the pollutants get concentrated in whatever lake/pond/bay/river they are dumped in. After they have built up, they can be VERY harmful to the ecosystem.)
• Ask the students to imagine what would happen if you blew some dust into the air around the "rain" falling from the bowl (or other air pollution). Where would the dust go? What would its path be? Explain that many pollutants are transported via the methods in this demonstration: some are released into the air by evaporating water, some are carried by wind, some condense with water vapor and fall as acid rain.
• Explain that environmental engineers are concerned about the water cycle because pollutants can be carried along with the water—moving the pollutants from the air to the ground, into bodies of water and possibly back into the air with evaporation.
• Ask the students: What does air pollution have to do with the water cycle? Ask the students to complete the Water Cycle Worksheet , identifying the stages of the water cycle process, starting with evaporation. Assign the worksheet as homework and/or review as a class.

aquifer: An underground bed or layer of earth, gravel or porous stone that yields water.

bioreactors: An apparatus for growing organisms that are used for various purposes, including the bioconversion of organic waste.

bioremediation: The use of biological agents, such as bacteria or plants, to remove or neutralize contaminants, as in polluted soil or water.

condense: To change from a gas or vapor into a liquid. The opposite of evaporation.

evaporate: To change from a liquid into a gas or vapor. The opposite of condensation.

microbes: A tiny life form, a microorganism.

precipitation: Any form of water, such as rain, snow, sleet or hail that falls to the Earth's surface.

reservoir: A natural or artificial pond or lake used for the storage and regulation of water.

uranium: A heavy, silvery-white metallic element, radioactive and toxic.

watershed: A ridge of high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river systems; water parting; the region draining into a river, river system or other body of water.

Pre-Activity Assessment

Prediction : Ask the students what they know about the water cycle and what they think will happen in the class demonstration. Solicit, integrate and summarize student responses.

Activity Embedded Assessment

Question/Answer : During the activity, ask the students the following questions to assess their understanding.

• What is happening to the boiling water? What do you see happening on the bottom of the bowl? What do you see happening in the bowl of ice water? How does the water get on the outside of the bowl? Are the water drops on the side of the bowl the same size? Why? Which drops are falling from the bowl? Why? Which drops look like rain? Which drops look like a cloud? How are the big drops formed?
• What would happen if you blew some dust into the air around the "rain" falling from the bowl (or other air pollution)? Where would the dust go? What would its path be?

Worksheet : Ask students to complete the Water Cycle Worksheet , assigning it as homework and/or review together in class.

Post-Activity Assessment

Diagramming : Ask the students to illustrate the water cycle concept through drawing. After watching the class demonstration, have them make a drawing of the water cycle that includes the lake, cloud, watershed and reservoir. They can use blue for the water and precipitation, and include arrows to show the path of the pollution transport. For a more detailed diagram, have the students label when in the cycle evaporation, condensation and precipitation take place.

Safety Issues

Remember to use caution when using the hot plate (or stovetop) with students.

Preparation time is about 10 minutes. It takes about 20-30 minutes to get significant condensation ("rain") depending on the environmental conditions.

Allow time for the water to come to a boil. It will take a couple minutes for the water to condense on the bowl of ice water and start dripping.

Bring in a frozen bottle (clear) of a favorite student drink (such as red Kool-Aid). On a humid day, clear water condenses on the outside of the bottle while it is sitting on the desk. Explain that the red Kool-Aid is not leaking from the bottle, but that what is condensing (changing from water vapor to liquid) around the bottle is water present in the air.

Investigate different types of pollutants that are easily/not so easily transported via the water cycle.

Try the demonstration with an invisible pollutant. Make a salt-water solution and place that in the frying pan "lake." What happens when most of the water has evaporated from the pan? Does the water in the reservoir taste salty?

Have students research to find out how polluted certain lakes are, or what concentrations of pollutants in a lake are considered acceptable. For example, fewer than 25ppb (parts per billion) of one pollutant may be considered acceptable, while more than 100ppb might be considered hazardous.

• While this demonstration is appropriate for all age levels, modify the discussion to fit the needs of your students.
• For younger students, if they need help with the Water Cycle Worksheet , have them identify five stages: Evaporation from the ground, wind transport, condensation into clouds, precipitation and water returned back to Earth.
• While this activity is intended as a class demonstration, closely supervised older students may be able to do this on their own.
• Instead of using the Water Cycle Worksheet , have more advanced students draw their own diagram of the water cycle from watching the class demonstration.

Students learn the fundamentals of using microbes to treat wastewater. They discover how wastewater is generated and its primary constituents. Microbial metabolism, enzymes and bioreactors are explored to fully understand the primary processes occurring within organisms.

Students learn about a special branch of engineering called bioremediation, which is the use of living organisms to aid in the clean-up of pollutant spills. Students learn all about bioremediation and see examples of its importance. In the associated activity, students conduct an experiment and see ...

Students examine in detail the water cycle components and phase transitions, and then learn how water moves through the human-made urban environment. Students show their understanding of the process by writing a description of the path of a water droplet through the urban water cycle, from the dropl...

Valenti, Michael. Cleaning Up After Industry. Updated 1999. American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Accessed July 22, 2004. Originally found at: http://memagazine.asme.org/

Contributors

Supporting program, acknowledgements.

The contents of this digital library curriculum were developed under grants from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation (GK-12 grant no. 0338326). However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the Department of Education or National Science Foundation, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Last modified: October 25, 2020

Water Cycle

Water Cycle introduces students to the continuous process water follows from evaporation to precipitation. Students will learn many terms related to the water cycle and be able to explain the process to others correctly. They will be able to recognize the different steps and put them in order.

In the “Options for Lesson” section of the worksheet, you will see some suggestions for additional or alternative things to do for the lesson. One suggestion is to have students work in pairs throughout the lesson as they learn about the water cycle. You could also have students present their 2D water cycle models to the class.

Description

Additional information, what our water cycle lesson plan includes.

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Water Cycle teaches students how water flows through a continuous process from evaporation to precipitation. Students will learn and be able to define the terms that relate to the steps of this process. By the end of the lesson, they will be able to explain the process to others correctly. This lesson is for students in 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For this lesson, you will need to supply plastic cups, water, ice cubes, paper towels, construction paper, markers, glue, and other supplies that students may need to make a 2D model of the water cycle. Before giving the lesson, you will also need to gather the plastic cups and fill them with water about 3/4 of the way.

Options for Lesson

There are several suggestions in the “Options for Lesson” section that you could incorporate into the lesson if you have time or want to extend or adjust parts of the lesson. Several of these options relate specifically to the task of creating a 2D model. You may want students to work in pairs throughout the lesson, or just for the 2D model portion. Another idea is to let students present their models to the class. As an alternative idea, students could use PowerPoint or another slide deck software to present models of the water cycle.

Teacher Notes

The paragraph on the teacher notes page provides a little extra information for the lesson as you prepare. It suggests including hands-on activities whenever possible, such as showing a how a plant transpires over a period of time. You can use the blank lines on this page to write down ideas or thoughts you have as you read through the lesson document.

WATER CYCLE LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

The water cycle.

The Water Cycle lesson plan contains two pages of content. The first page describes how the water people drink today could be millions of years old. The reason for this phenomenon is that the water on the Earth that everyone and everything uses has existed since the beginning of time. For instance, the rain falling from the sky may one day be the water we drink a few weeks later. This is possible because of the water cycle, which basically recycles water in a continuous cycle.

The lesson provides a diagram that roughly shows the different steps of the cycle. It shows clouds with falling rain and snow over some mountains. Rivers flow down from the mountain tops and into a lake or ocean. It also displays how water on the ground seeps through the Earth’s surface and eventually deposits into surface water sources, such as the ocean.

To illustrate evaporation, the diagram shows white circles in the air with arrows and a label signifying the upward direction. It does not outline the cycle exactly. Instead, it provides arrows to represent that snow and rain fall down, groundwater flows into a water source, and water vapor rises into the atmosphere.

Steps of the Cycle

Below the diagram, the lesson explains the four steps of the water cycle in detail. The first step is evaporation. Evaporation occurs when the sun heats up the waters of oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water. The heat turns the water into a gas, also called water vapor. The vapor then rises into the air (evaporates). This process doesn’t just happen for large bodies of water. Students will learn that even an open container of water inside a house will eventually evaporate.

Transpiration is the next step. It is the process by which plants lose water in the form of water vapor. It is similar to evaporation because it also moves water vapor into the air, except that the source is plants instead of water bodies. Transpiration occurs continuously as plants grow and use up the water that passes through the roots, later releasing it into the air again.

Students will then learn about condensation, the third step of the cycle. Condensation occurs when water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into a liquid. Clouds actually form during condensation, and when they fill up too much with the moisture in the atmosphere, it rains. One example of how condensation works is what happens to a bathroom mirror after a hot shower. The steam (water vapor) from the shower is hot, but when it touches the cool mirror, it becomes liquid again. As a result, the mirror looks hazy from the moisture.

The last step is precipitation, which involves rain, snow, sleet, or hail falling to the ground from the clouds. It occurs when the air can no longer hold the water that has evaporated. The clouds are too heavy with moisture, so the evaporated water falls back to the Earth as precipitation.

After Precipitation

After it rains or water returns to Earth in another form during precipitation, it becomes ground water. Ground water is what plants and animals use for drinking. It can also be stored in aquifers, which are underground layers of rock that get saturated with water. That water can return to the surface through natural springs. In addition, people can pump the water to the surface.

When there is a large amount of precipitation, it runs over the soil and collects in oceans, lakes, or rivers. This excess water from storms, meltwater, or other sources is called runoff. In other words, runoff is the water that remains on the Earth’s surface rather than absorbing into the soil. The water from runoff evaporates, starting the whole cycle over again.

A fun fact that students will also learn is that sweating is an example of condensation in action. When the moisture drips off the skin, it is essentially like precipitation. The sweat begins to dry due to evaporation. However, since people aren’t plants, the body does not transpire. Instead, they perspire, which occurs when moisture escapes into the air. That means that the water a person sweats could some day become the water they drink!

The lesson provides another diagram that shows how plants transpire. The roots of the plant absorb water from the soil and into the root hairs. The water then travels through the plant’s stem and leaves. After it begins to transpire, the water starts to evaporate from the surface of the leaves and into the atmosphere once more.

Here is a list of the vocabulary words students will learn in this lesson plan:

• Evaporation: the process by which water returns to the atmosphere
• Transpiration: the process by which plants lose water in the form of water vapor
• Condensation: the process by which water vapor in the air becomes cold and changes back to a liquid
• Precipitation: the process by which water falls to the ground in the form of rain, snow, sleet, or hail
• Ground water: the water that soaks into the surface of the Earth after it rains, snows, or hails
• Aquifer: an underground layer of rock that saturates with water that can reach the surface again through natural springs or by pumping
• Runoff: the flow of excess water from storms, meltwater, or other sources that remains on the Earth’s surface

WATER CYCLE LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Water Cycle lesson plan includes three worksheets: a journal page, a rubric, and a homework assignment. The guidelines on the classroom procedure page describe when to hand out each assignment to the class.

OBJECT LESSON JOURNAL PAGE

You will use the journal pages before you distribute any of the content pages. The classroom procedure lists the steps to follow for an object lesson. The journal page is for students to answer questions that relate to the things they observe as you go through the object lesson. The classroom procedure page also provides you with the list of questions to ask. Students will write the questions you ask them in the boxes on the worksheet and write in their answers. There are a total of 10 questions.

2D MODEL RUBRIC PAGE

As part of the classroom procedure, students will create a 2D model of the water cycle. They will need to include labels, arrows, and other information so that it is clear for viewers to understand. The rubric page shows students what you will assess them on. For instance, does their model show all the steps of the cycle? Did students label the model correctly? Does the model clearly show multiple types of perspiration? There is space near the bottom of the rubric for you to provide comments.

WATER CYCLE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

For the homework assignment, students will complete a crossword puzzle. There are a total of 20 terms and clues for them to figure out.

Worksheet Answer Keys

The last page of this document is an answer key for the homework assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits this page. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep this as reference for yourself when grading assignments.

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Perfect lesson plan!

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Amazing, my students enjoy the lesson.

Water cycle review....Excellent

Beautiful and easy, my student enjoyed the class and it was easier for me to explain

Preliminary Review

I really like the videos on water, but I need to test them out with my elementary school teachers in our Trout in the Classroom Program.

This review of the water cycle served as an excellent source to differentiate my reading levels for my students and still provided quality content. Thanks so much for all you do, Clarendon Learning!

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Interactive Water Cycle Diagram for Kids (Advanced)

The water cycle describes how Earth's water is not only always changing forms, between liquid (rain), solid (ice), and gas (vapor), but also moving on, above, and in the Earth. This process is always happening everywhere.

In the grand scheme of the water cycle, animals may not play a very big role, but all animals, including you, participate in moving water around as part of the water cycle.

The water cycle is critical to all animals and life on Earth. All animals need to take in water, use it, and get rid of the excess—animals have their own mini-water cycle going all the time. And some, like this parrot, have even learned to use a park drinking fountain when they need a drink.

There is one creature on Earth that does have a very large impact on the water cycle—human beings. The natural water cycle changed once people came on the scene. People have adapted and remade parts of the world to make use of water, such as draining wetlands, pulling massive amounts of water out of the ground, damming rivers to create reservoirs, and using significant amounts of water from rivers for human use.

The atmosphere truly is the superhighway in the sky that moves water everywhere over the Earth.

The next time you go outside you will be standing in the Earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere is all the air from the bottom of an ant's leg up to where there is no more air—many miles in the sky.

The air outside may look invisible, but it is full of molecules, including water molecules, as water vapor. That big cumulus cloud (full of water) floating in the sky is the water cycle in action.

The water vapor all around you rises up into the sky to become part of a cloud which will float off with the winds, probably looking for a picnic to rain on. A cloud in the atmosphere can move for hundreds of miles before it releases its water as rain or snow. That is how water that evaporates from the ocean one day may end up as rainfall over Ezmerelda's tomato patch in Kansas the next day.

How much does a cloud weigh?

What fools you is that the water vapor in the air in a clear, blue sky is invisible, and there is not enough water vapor to condense into clouds. Water vapor contains water molecules—one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. You know hydrogen is the lightest of all elements, and, even when combined with an oxygen atom, the hydrogen acts like little "hot air balloons" that makes the vapor lighter than the molecules in the surrounding dry air. Water vapor naturally floats upwards, eventually condensing and forming clouds.

And, a cloud weighs ...  According to NOAA , your average cumulus cloud one kilometer (0.62 miles) on a side will weigh about 998 million kilograms (2.2 billion pounds). That is equal to about 22 million (22,000,000) kids weighing 100 pounds each.

Condensation

All air contains water molecules in the form of water vapor, which is invisible. Since the water cycle is all about water changing forms all the time, how does the water vapor turn from a gas back into a liquid and become rain?

The word is "condensation". Water vapor gas condenses back into liquid water and ice, which you mainly see as clouds and then as rain and snow.

Condensation happens because of temperature changes. Warmer air can contain more water vapor than colder air, so when air rises up from the heated earth's surface high into the sky (warm air rises, of course), to where the temperatures are much colder, condensation happens. Some of the water vapor in the cold air high in the sky just cannot stay a gas, and condenses into tiny liquid water droplets—the clouds you see every day. Give it time, the liquid water comes down as rain.

Evaporation

For the water cycle to work, water has to get from the Earth's surface back up into the skies so it can rain back down and ruin your parade or water your crops or yard. It is the invisible process of evaporation that changes liquid and frozen water into water-vapor gas, which then floats up into the skies to become clouds.

The need for heat: As usual, you can thank the sun for keeping evaporation going. The sun's energy breaks the bonds that hold liquid water's molecules together. Thus, it makes sense that water evaporates more easily in hot conditions, such as in the desert, rather than on a cloudy winter day.

Keeping cool: You can thank evaporation for helping to keep you cool on a hot day. You feel colder when you are wet because the water all over you is evaporating, and the process of evaporation needs heat to work. Your skin gives up its heat, thus making you feel cooler.

Humidity: The amount of water vapor in the air is known as "humidity", often mentioned in the weather reports on the local news. When warm air containing a lot of water vapor (high humidity) moves into colder temperatures (either high in the atmosphere or even on the outside of your glass of iced tea), the colder temperatures cause water vapor to condense into a liquid. The colder temperatures cause water vapor to condense into water droplets and can result in fog.

Evapotranspiration (Evaporation and transpiration)

Take a breath and breathe out—you just participated in the global water cycle. Your breath contains water—breathe on a glass pane to see it appear. When a person breathes, the term is called "respiration".

All the plants around you are "breathing" and releasing water, too. The term is called "transpiration", and although a Brussels sprout doesn't have a mouth, it has tiny holes in its leaves that allow water to leave the leaf, via evaporation, and go into the air. So, plants "transpire" water while humans "respire" water.

A large tree can transpire many thousands of gallons during the growing season. If you click the picture to the right, you can see leaf transpiration in action.

But the big word is "Evapotranspiration", which is just a combination of "evaporation" plus "transpiration". This just means that not only are plants transpiring water from their leaves, water is evaporating from the soil all around them, too.

Fog and dew

Fog contains very tiny liquid water particles, like a cloud, and floats, like a cloud. Actually, fog IS a cloud, but one that swirls around your feet instead of high in the sky.

Fog forms when air containing invisible water vapor encounters cooler temperatures (next to the ground) and some of the water vapor condenses out into liquid water droplets. In this picture, as the day warms the air next to the ground will warm, too, and the fog particles will again evaporate back into invisible water vapor.

In the case of dew, water vapor in the air encounters a substance that has become cooler, such as the grass at night or even your glass of iced tea. The cooler temperatures causes the water vapor in the air to condense into liquid water—dew.

Fog and dew can join forces to become an intricate part on the water cycle in certain locations. On the island of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, fog condenses into dew and drips onto the ground, contributing a significant amount of water to the forests during the non-rainy months.

Groundwater flow

Groundwater outflow, Snake River.

If you pour a glass of water onto the ground it usually sinks right in ( infiltration ), so you can imagine how much water sinks into the ground during a major storm ( Find out here ). Here in Atlanta, Ga, USA it rains about 50 inches/year. Over a 100 square mile (10 miles by 10 miles) area, that means 87,000 billion gallons of water falls, with much of it soaking into the ground to become groundwater.

Yes, water below your feet is moving all the time, but, no, if you have heard there are rivers flowing below ground, that is not true. Water underground moves, due to gravity, downward and sideways. Groundwater serves many purposes in nature: keeping plants alive, filling aquifers, from which people can withdraw water, providing water to rivers and lakes, and eventually flowing into the oceans.

Groundwater storage

The ground stores huge amounts of water and it exists to some degree no matter where on Earth you are. The water gets there by gravity. The top layer of the ground is the soil and below that is where true groundwater exists—sometimes called an aquifer. In these layers the rock has many small openings, cracks, and fissures and water occupies all the spaces. People can sometimes drill wells into this region and pull out water for irrigation and drinking.

This picture gives you an idea of how an aquifer works. At a certain depth water saturates all the openings between the rock (sand, in this case) particles. That pool of water you see is a mix of dirt and water (the "aquifer" you see in this picture is more watery than a true aquifer).

The deeper down you go, the rocks become more dense, thus "squeezing" out openings in the rock. Temperatures also get extremely hot further down, which prevents liquid water from existing. Thus, at a certain depth, miles into the Earth, no more liquid water will be found.

H 2 O ... Water!

One molecule of water in your glass won't quench your thirst, though. You need LOTS of water molecules, trillions of them. At normal temperatures all those individual water molecules like to stick together and form a liquid (the water in your glass).

Because of the way that the hydrogen and oxygen atoms exist in a water molecule, one water molecule is attracted to another water molecule. The opposite sides of a water molecule stick to each other just as opposite sides (poles) of magnets do.

Like a magnet, one side of the water molecule (the side with the oxygen atom) has a negative electrical charge while the other side, where the hydrogen atoms sit, has a positive charge. Since opposite charges attract each other, water molecules attract each other. So much so that when trillions of them get together, they often start sticking to each other and, thus, you have liquid water.

Ice and snow

Ice and glaciers are part of the water cycle, even though the water in them moves very slowly. The amount of ice on the Earth goes up and down as the world's climate cools and warms over thousands of years.

Lucky for us we're now in a warmer phase of the Earth's history, but the last Ice Age was only 18,000 years ago. At that time, ice covered the northern part of North America .

So much liquid water was locked up in ice back then that the oceans were about 400 feet (122 meters) lower than they are today. If all land ice melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet (70 meters).

Ice and glaciers are still very prevalent today, as you can see by looking at a satellite image of Greenland (now, why is it called "Green"land?). Glacial ice covers 10-11 percent of all land. In fact, most of the world's freshwater , about 68 percent, is locked up in ice, snow, and glaciers.

Ice caps influence the weather, too. The color white reflects sunlight (heat) more than darker colors, and as ice is so white, sunlight is reflected back out to the sky, which helps to create weather patterns.

Ice in the sky

The clouds overhead are made of water, of course. Most of the clouds you see in the atmosphere are composed of tiny droplets of liquid water, but not all. Very high in the sky the air gets really cold, way below freezing. Clouds in this region are made of ice particles.

You see ice clouds all the time as cirrus clouds. They are usually rushing by as if they are late for dinner, but that is only because the winds at high altitudes are often moving very fast.

Actually, some of the cirrus clouds you see are created by humans—these are the "contrails", or condensation trails made by airplanes, as you see in this picture.

Infiltration

You can't see it, but a large portion of the world's freshwater lies underground. It may all start as precipitation, but through infiltration and seepage, water soaks into the ground in vast amounts. Water in the ground keeps all plant life alive and serves peoples' needs, too.

How much rainfall infiltrates the ground depends on many things and varies a lot all over the world. But infiltration works everywhere, and pretty much anywhere in the world you are, there is some water at some depth below your feet, courtesy of infiltration.

Infiltration recharges groundwater: Just like a rechargeable battery, aquifers in the ground are "recharged" by water infiltrating from the surface. And because water underground often flows sideways, water in the ground can be recharged by rainfall hundreds of miles away.

Here is an pleasant scene of a lake in Switzerland. A lake is a low area on the ground where water collects and pools. Water is coming into the area faster than it leaves, so it backs up, forming a lake (people cause this too by building a dam on a river, creating a reservoir).

Lakes are surrounded by higher land on some sides of it. Rain that falls and snow that melts on the higher land alongside a lake (the watershed) flows down the hills as runoff into the lake. Water also seeps into the ground alongside the lake and flows downhill (though underground) contributing water to the lake.

A lot of water coming into a lake arrives from creeks and rivers that flow into it. These creeks and rivers collect and move water flowing downhill in the watershed that drains into the lake. Thus, a lake's level will often rise when it rains many miles upstream from it in the watershed.

If you look at this picture (or click on it for a larger version) you see that "tiny" blue ball sitting in the middle of the United States—if all the water on, in, and above the Earth was collected in one big ball, this is the size it would be.

The oceans are, by far, the largest reservoir of water on earth—over 96% of all of Earth's water exists in the oceans. The big ball here is about 860 miles (1,384 kilometers) across (diameter). In terms of the water cycle, almost all water that is in the atmosphere (about 90%) comes from evaporation from the oceans.

Not only do the oceans provide evaporated water to the water cycle, they also allow water to move all around the globe. Ocean currents move massive amounts of water throughout the oceans, and the movement of water affects everything from the climate to the environments where life thrives both in the oceans and on the continents.

The Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, for example, moves warmer water from the Gulf of Mexico northward and eastward, ending up on the coasts of northern Europe. Much of Europe would be much colder if it was not for the Gulf Stream.

Vents in the ocean

One of the more recent discoveries in the oceans are "thermal ocean vents", as you see in this picture. You are seeing very hot water pouring out of what looks like a mini-volcano at the bottom of the ocean, many miles below the surface.

These vents are not large, so they don't really contribute much water to the global water cycle, but they are interesting because the water is coming from deep in the earth, which happens to be very hot (the rock material is molten). In an environment so hot you won't find liquid water, but you will find the components of water: hydrogen and oxygen molecules .

The water coming out of these vents is full of dissolved minerals, even salt; this is one way that the oceans become salty . By the way, even miles below the surface, the areas around these vents are much warmer and support all kinds of unique ocean life that do not exist in other parts of the ocean.

Plant uptake

Every tree, grass blade, and plant around you is performing a gravity-defying wonder: it is moving water, against the force of gravity, upwards from the ground into its roots, trunk, branches, and leaves (where it finally exits via transpiration).

Plants mostly depend on water in the ground for their needs, not rainfall directly. Even when you sprinkle you garden with water to give it a drink, the plants want the water that soaks into the ground next to them, not from the water that lands on their leaves.

In the ground, rain infiltrates downward into the ground, with much of it being held in tiny spaces between the dirt particles close to the surface. This is the same zone that plants put down their roots, roots that pull in the groundwater and send it up, via capillary action , to the rest of the plant.

Precipitation

The amount of precipitation that falls is different all around the world. In deserts, such as in Chile, it may only rain one inch per year, while on some mountains in Hawaii and in India, it can rain more than 600 inches per year. That is almost 2 inches every day!

Some locations get rain all year long, and many other places have rainy and dry seasons, and only get significant rainfall during certain months of the year. Some places, such as Antarctica, really don't get rain, but they sure get a lot of snow, which accumulates as icefields and glaciers.

Precipitation is the "exit ramp" back to earth from the superhighway in the atmosphere that is moving water vapor and clouds all around the globe.

Recharge (Groundwater recharge)

You've heard of rechargeable batteries, right? After it gets used up you plug it into a socket and "recharge" it with electricity.

Water in the ground needs recharging, too, because with the water cycle, water is always moving, even underground. The water under your feet moves back towards the oceans, rivers, and lakes, and also fills up reservoirs (aquifers) underground that hold a lot of water; reservoirs that people drill wells into and take water out to irrigate crops and provide drinking water.

Don't worry, the water infiltrating from the land surface down into the ground re-fills (recharges) the areas where water has moved on to somewhere else.

But, with so many people using groundwater all over the world, oftentimes the water in aquifers in the ground get used up faster than nature can recharge them with infiltration from precipitation. If that happens, wells can stop producing water and there may not be enough to serve peoples' needs. Yes, groundwater is a natural resource that people use, but one that is not in infinite supply all the time.

Some of the water that falls from the sky soaks into the ground and becomes groundwater, while some rainfall evaporates back into the sky. Most rainfall stays on the land surface and, due to gravity, starts running downhill. The runoff water will accumulate in creeks, streams, and rivers. Rivers are responsible for moving a lot of water off of the land and eventually back into the oceans.

Something you probably don't know, rivers also lose water through their streambeds into the ground, and water from the ground seeps into rivers, so rivers interact with the ground. Plants, animals, and people interact with rivers, as all kinds of life seems to thrive around rivers and the land alongside them (riparian zones). In fact, if you look at a map of anywhere in the world, you'll see how people naturally build their cities next to rivers .

If you look at a satellite view of a dry part of the world, as this picture shows, you can often pick out the rivers because of the green growth growing along them.

Runoff is nothing more than water "running off" the land surface. Just as the water you wash your car with runs off down the driveway as you work, the rain that Mother Nature covers the landscape with runs off downhill, too (due to gravity).

Even though some rainfall soaks into the ground, most of it flows over the land surface, going downhill. This runoff water reaches rivers, lakes, and the oceans, keeping the water cycle going.

Runoff is also important because as it flows over the land, some of it soaks into the ground, thus "recharging" groundwater, providing plants with water for their roots to take up so they can create the delicious beets and spinach you like so much, and keeps underground aquifers (areas underground full of water) full so people can drill a well and pull the water out for their own purposes.

Rainfall, luckily which is clear, seeps into the ground.

You know all about seepage. When you spill your red fruit drink onto your Mom's white carpet, she rushes (after glaring at you) to get a sponge to soak up the liquid before it "seeps down into the carpet".

Seepage is a natural process with water that occurs everywhere, too. Seepage occurs when precipitation falls on the landscape and starts to soak into the ground. The "Why?" this happens is simply gravity. Read our sections about groundwater and you'll find out that there is a whole lot of water in the ground below your feet, water that is always moving, too.

The process of water seeping into the ground is called infiltration. But, seepage doesn't just happen downward. Water flows sideways, too, from the ground into the bottom of rivers, lakes, and the oceans. Some of the water you see flowing in a river has come up from the ground.

When it rains, the rivers rise, right? But what about when it snows–what happens then? Yes, the rivers still rise, but it may not happen until 6 months after it has snowed. If it is cold, precipitation will often fall as snow rather than as rain. If it stays cold, the snow could build up all winter and not begin to melt until spring. That snow is temporarily locked up "in storage" as ice and snow in the land alongside the river.

Just like the flowers waiting for springtime to bloom, this snow is waiting for warmer temperatures so it can melt and get back into contributing water to the ever-moving water cycle. In many regions, when large-scale snowmelt happens in the spring, watch out downstream, because significant flooding can occur from the melting of months of accumulated snowpack.

This picture shows Bow River falls in Banff, Canada during the springtime melting period. Notice the blue-green color of the water. This is common for meltwater from a glacier, in this case, often due to the suspension of very fine minerals in the water.

A spring is a place where water moving underground finds an opening to the land surface and emerges, sometimes as just a trickle, maybe only after a rain, and sometimes in a continuous flow. Here is a pleasant spring used as a swimming hole in Florida, USA. The crystal-clear water (groundwater is often very clear, as the ground filters out particles) is a constant 73°F (23° C).

Some parts of the world have a lot more springs than other places, since the flow of water underground is largely dependent on what kinds of rocks are underground. In a place like Florida that has a lot of very porous rock full of cracks, water can more easily move around, as opposed to ground containing more solid and less-cracked rock. Thus, in Florida, you find a relatively large number of springs.

Hot springs occur where the groundwater is heated by the hotter temperatures deep in the ground. The famous Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, USA is really a spring. A geyser is just a spring that releases built-up water at intervals. And there are even hot springs ( ocean vents ) at the bottom of the deepest points of the Pacific Ocean, and in Greenland .

Streamflow is the water flowing in the creeks, streams, and rivers that you see in the low-lying parts of the landscape. After the rain falls, most of it runs off the land downhill, towards rivers and the oceans.

One word can explain why any river exists on Earth—gravity. You've heard that "water seeks its own level," but really water is seeking the center of the Earth, just like everything else. So, no matter where on Earth water is, it tries to flow downhill. With the Earth being a very unlevel place, water collects in rivers, which are the highways for precipitation to eventually get back to the oceans.

A watershed is the area of land where all of the precipitation that falls in it drains off and goes to the same point in a river. Think of a big footprint, pointing downill, in the mud on a steep hillside. Whatever water falls onto the area of the footprint will flow down to the toe and maybe flow out (as a "river"). The whole footprint is the "watershed" for the point where water leaves the footprint.

Sublimation

When rain falls where you live, much of it disappears from evaporation , right? But what about at the top of Mt. Everest? The elevation is over 29,000 feet and temperatures at the peak are never above freezing, so it never rains there. It does snow a lot. We all know that snow melts, but if it never rises above freezing, how does snow not build up forever on Mt. Everest?

As this picture shows, winds, often at hurricane force, blow tons of snow off the peak. But a part of the water cycle called "sublimation" is also at work. Just as evaporation turns liquid water into water vapor gas, sublimation turns frozen water directly into water vapor gas, skipping the melting phase into a liquid.

Also, as with evaporation, the sun's heat causes sublimation to work, and on top of Mt. Everest on a clear day, the sun is very strong and provides energy for sublimation, even though it is below freezing.

Sublimation doesn't just occur on mountain peaks. If there is snow and ice buildup in your neighborhood then on a sunny and dry day sublimation is happening there, too.

Who's the Boss?  The real boss of the water cycle doesn't even live here on Earth. The sun is what makes the water cycle work. The sun provides what almost everything on Earth needs to go—energy, or heat.

The sun is so big that even at over 90 million miles you can feel its heat. The sun's energy affects water at its smallest level - the molecular level. Liquid water contains water molecules stuck together. The energy from the sun can break apart these tightly-held molecules into much smaller sets of water molecules, which results in tiny water vapor particles, an invisible gas. This process allows liquid water to evaporate into water vapor, which in the main way water gets from the land surface and oceans back into the sky.

The sun also participates in moving water around the Earth. Different parts of the world (and even your neighborhood) are heated to different levels by the sun, and unequal heating and cooling of parts of the landscape causes air to move around from here to there—the winds. You know that the winds move clouds and the weather all over the place; all of this mixing up and moving is an important part of the water cycle.

Sunbathing - evaporation

If this drip sitting on a desert island is hoping to get a tan, she'd better hurry because the water cycle is not going to let her hang around here very long. A water drop laying in the sun on a hot day is just asking to be evaporated by the sun.

As soon as she sat down in her chair, the sun's heat began to evaporate her into water vapor gas, and so she will float off as millions of vapor particles up into the sky. The drip won't be upset, though, as her water vapor will eventually recombine to form clouds and then rain which will runoff the land into rivers which flow into the oceans, again. She can be back sunbathing by the next day.

Volcanic steam

What is interesting about the steam coming from a volcano is that the components of water are coming out from deep inside the earth, which is on the far edges of the water cycle. At a certain depth below the land surface you won't find liquid water, due to the tremendous temperatures and pressures. But the molten rock and material making up magma deep in the earth contains chemicals that later do form water molecules.

The World's Water

Where is Earth's Water?

• In the first bar, notice how only 2.5% of all Earth's water is freshwater, which is what life needs to survive. Over 96% of all water is found in the oceans.
• The middle bar shows the breakdown on that 2.5% which is freshwater. Almost all of it is locked up in ice and in the ground. Only 1.3% of all freshwater (which was only 2.5% of all water) is surface water, such as lakes and rivers, which serves most of life's needs.
• The right side bar shows the breakdown of only the surface freshwater, which was only 1.3% of all freshwater. Most of surface freshwater is locked up in ice, and another 20% is in lakes. Notice the 0.46% of surface freshwater that is in rivers. Sounds like a tiny amount, but rivers are where humans get a large portion of their water from.

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This biology homework page is perfect for helping students review the water cycle and the human impact on the water cycle. This one page worksheet is designed to have meaningful, thought-provoking, and creative questions that are respectful of student time.

This page is part of my giant Biology Homework for a Year Bundle. Click here to read about that whole year bundle if you want to buy a whole year’s worth of homework pages at a discount as compared to buying them separately.

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What is the water cycle?

The water cycle is the continuous journey water takes from the sea, to the sky, to the land and back to the sea.

The movement of water around our planet is vital to life as it supports plants and animals. Powered by the Sun, the water cycle is happening all the time, though some parts of the cycle take hundreds of years (for example, some of the Earth's water is frozen in polar regions or lying in underground reservoirs and not part of the constant movement of water through evaporation, condensation and precipitation). 

How is the water cycle taught in primary school?

As the diagram shows:  

• Water from the earth’s oceans is heated by the sun’s rays which causes it to change into a gas and rise into the air (this is called evaporation ).
• Once high up in the sky, the gas begins to cool and turns back into a liquid ( condensation ).
• The water droplets form clouds which become heavy and fall from the sky in the form of rain, sleet, hail or snow; this is called precipitation .

Download fantastic science resources today!

• Experiments And Science Fun pack
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• All the instructions, questions and information you need

When is the water cycle taught?

In Year 4 children learn about the water cycle including the terms evaporation and condensation.

In Year 5 children will use their knowledge and understanding of evaporation to separate mixtures of solids and liquids.

Children also learn about the water cycle in geography lessons during Key Stage 2 (which year group will depend on the individual school). In geography children learn to describe and understand the water cycle in terms of physical geography and will consider its effect on weather.  

How is the water cycle taught?

Children may watch video clips of the water cycle and might be asked to draw and label diagrams of it. Children will most likely carry out scientific investigations on this topic, for example recording evaporation over a time period; this could be by measuring the amount of water in a container left out in the sun or using chalk to draw around a puddle on the playground and observe changes in the size of the puddle.

In Year 5 children may carry out experiments or practical investigations to separate salt and water by using evaporation.

Books about the water cycle for children

Water cycle activities to do at home:

• When it rains, discuss how this happens with your child. Where does the rain come from? What are clouds? Use the correct vocabulary: evaporation, condensation and precipitation.
• Investigate evaporation of puddles by drawing around the puddle with chalk and observe what happens over several hours.
• Ask your child to help you peg some washing on the line. Discuss how the water evaporates in the warm air to dry the clothes. Where does the water go? What is this called? Use the vocabulary evaporation, condensation, precipitation.
• Create a diagram of the water cycle. You could use paint, colouring pencils, chalks outside on a patio, natural materials such as leaves and twigs, collage materials or dried pasta and lentils to create your diagram. Label each stage: evaporation, condensation, precipitation.
• The Severn Trent Education Zone offers a number of water cycle activities for children , including an interactive water cycle adventure, Join Molly on the Journey of Water.

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