The Water Cycle

The earth has a limited amount of water.That

water keeps going around and around and

around in what we call the "Water cycle".It is the

only way that Earth can be continually supplied

with fresh water.The sun is the most important

part of renewing our water supply.It can be solid

(ice),a liquid (water), or gas (water vapor).

Water on earth is always changing.

How do these changes happen?

It is made up of a few main parts:evaporation

(and transpiration),condensation and

precipitation. Evaporation is when the sun

heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean

and turns it into the vapor. The water vapor

leaves the river,lake or ocean and goes into

the air.

Condensation is water vapor in the air gets

cold and changes back into liquid, forming

clouds.If heat is taken away from liquid water,

it freezes to become ice.Water vapor

condenses into millions of small or tiny

droplets that forms a cloud.Clouds lose their water as rain or snow,which is called

percipitation.

Percipitation occurs when so much water has

condensed that the air can't hold it anymore.

The clouds get heavy and heavy and water

falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail,

snow.It is either absorbed into the ground or

runs off into rivers.Water that was absorbed

into the ground is taken up by plants.Plants

lose water from their surface as vapor back

into the atmosphere. Water that runs off into

rivers flows into the atmosphere. Water that

runs off into rivers flows into ponds, lakes,or

oceans where it evaporates back into the

atmosphere.The cycle