Digital Inquiry - Water Cycle - NICHOLAS GLAESER | Library

The REAL Water Cycle (video)

Find out how human interference makes the REAL water cycle a lot more complex than the basic water cycle you learned in elementary school.

Watch the video.  Use the information from the video to fill in the blanks. 

6

Water goes up due to ________________ and transpiration.
It condenses and comes down as __________________.  
Water that falls on the land flows over the land as ___________.
Water can also seep into the ground during ________________.
Water can be stored in an underground aquifer, lake, or __________.
Humans change the water cycle so it is a complex water ___________.

Other Answer Choices:

ocean

percolation

precipitation

runoff

evaporation

system

TEXT: HOW CLOUDS FORM

Water in your dog’s bowl can become a cloud.

Ok, it would take a lot of dog bowls of water to make a cloud.  However, all the surface water – oceans, lakes, rivers, pools, and, yes, even water in your dog’s bowl – can evaporate and become a cloud.

This is how it works: There is a lot of available water in liquid form on the Earth, mainly in the
oceans. Solar energy heats that water from the Sun. The heated water turns into gas form (water vapor) during evaporation.  Water vapor rises into the atmosphere, which is cooler than at the surface.

Cool air cannot hold as much water as warm air, so water vapor condenses (turns back into liquid form). The liquid droplets collect around bits of dust and cling together, which forms clouds.  You can see clouds up close when the air at the surface cools and fog is formed the same way clouds form.

4

Drag and drop to sequence the processes that form clouds.

Liquid droplets collect around dust to form a cloud.
Liquid water becomes water vapor as it evaporates.
The Sun’s heat warms water on the ocean's surface.
Water vapor cools and changes back into liquid water droplets.

INFOGRAPHIC: CHANGING PHYSICAL STATE

1

Which list includes only examples of water in its liquid state?

1

During which process does liquid water change into water vapor?

ANIMATION: WATER CYCLE

EXPLORE
Click the link to view an animated diagram of the water cycle.

1

What happens to water droplets after evaporation, condensation, and precipitation?

11

The ________________  is the movement of water on, beneath, and above Earth’s surface. Water changes physical state due to changes in temperature.

Water changes from a liquid to a gas during ________________ . Water evaporates when the sun heats liquid water, changing it into ________________ .

_________  air causes water vapor to go through the process of condensation. Condensation occurs when water changes from a gas to a ___________ . Clouds form.

Water falls to Earth as __________________ . It can be snow, hail, rain, or sleet. Some precipitation is in liquid form, while other precipitation is in __________  form.

Water in its liquid form can be found underground, in ___________ , in oceans , and in __________ .  Water in its gas form is found in the _______________ .

Water in solid form can be found on mountaintops as snow and in _____________  as ice.