All About The Water Cycle

Do you know where rain comes from? Or what happens to water when it evaporates? Learn All About The Water Cycle on Kidzworld!

What is The Water Cycle?

Almost all water you've come into contact with has been around since almost as long as the earth itself. Really! Even a glass of water you just poured yourself, or the rain puddles on the street. The environment is the original recycler when it comes to water.

There's only so much water on earth, so it goes around and around in, you guessed it, The Water Cycle.

The Four Steps 

Evaporation

• Evaporation is what happens when the sun heats up bodies of water, like rivers or oceans, and turns it into vapor or steam. Once the water has become vapor or steam, it rises into the air - sounds like magic right? It's the magic of nature.

Condensation

• If you're watching clouds, you're actually observing a part of The Water Cycle called Condensation. Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds.
• If you've ever had a cold drink on a hot day, you'll have noticed condensation (little beads of water) on the outside of the glass - this is the same process, the water didn't leak from the glass! It came from the air, water vapor in the air touches the cold and turns back to liquid.

Precipitation

• So if clouds are water vapor turned back to liquid, how does all that heavy water stay up there? The answer is it doesn't! When the clouds get too heavy to hold the water, it falls back to earth. Precipitation is basically rain (or sleet, snow and hail, depending on the temperature.)

Collection

• Collection is literally the earth 'collecting' the water back - when it rains it falls back into bodies of water, on the ground (which turns into ground water for plants and animals.)

Then it starts all over again!

Have Your Say

Did you learn about The Water Cycle in school? Let us know in the comments section below!