The water cycle

The Water Cycle

I am learning to inform my audience through an explanation

By Maggie

Have you ever stopped while it is raining and wondered where the rain comes from? Well, rain is an important part of something called the water cycle. The water cycle is made up of three main parts, evaporation, condensation and precipitation, rain is part of precipitation. Did you know we can’t make new water? The freshwater on Earth is billions of years old because of the water cycle! Yes, that's right the water cycle recycles water! Right now you could be drinking water that dinosaurs splashed around in! The water cycle helps water travel across the world. Each stage is as important as the other because without just one of these there would be NO water cycle! Evaporation is where it all begins.

Evaporation is how water becomes water vapour and forms clouds, a very interesting process.The sun heats up water until it is over 100 degrees celsius causing it to evaporate and turn into an invisible gas called water vapour. The water vapour rises up to the sky and meets other water vapour. When there is enough water vapour they connect forming clouds and become visible. Evaporation is an amazing and important process that we could not live without.

Condensation comes after evaporation. Condensation is the process in which the gas form changes back to the liquid form, the reverse of evaporation. The water vapour in the clouds changes to liquid or ice when it is in the sky because of the freezing cold temperatures. Since it is water it is almost impossible for the air to hold it leading us to precipitation.

When the air can’t hold the water anymore it falls. This process is called precipitation. The water falls as either rain, snow, sleet or hail. Water that soaks into the ground is called groundwater and water that falls into big bodys of water is called streamflow. Sometimes water builds up in a underground hole, this hole is called an aquifer.

The water cycle is made up of three main parts evaporation, condensation and precipitation. We need the water cycle and we are lucky we have it. Thanks to the water cycle we still have the same amount of water on Earth that we had millions of years ago.  In conclusion, the water cycle is an important part of our life and we need to work together to stop wasting water, because remember there will never be any more water.