The Water Cycle
Understand the water cycle: the Sun heats water in oceans and lakes causing it to evaporate into water vapour, the vapour rises and cools to form clouds (condensation), and water falls back to Earth as rain, snow, or hail (precipitation) — then the cycle repeats
What a learner can do afterwards
- Name the three main stages: evaporation, condensation, precipitation
- Explain the Sun's role in driving the water cycle
- Describe the water cycle as a continuous loop with no beginning or end
The lesson
Water on Earth never sits still. It rises into the sky, turns into clouds, then falls back down as rain or snow. This trip is called the water cycle, and the Sun is what makes it happen.
The Sun warms water in oceans, lakes, and rivers. The warm water turns into an invisible gas called water vapour and floats up into the air. This step is called evaporation.
Mia sees a puddle after a sunny morning. By afternoon, the puddle is gone. The Sun warmed the puddle water until it turned into vapour and floated away into the air.
The water cycle has no beginning and no end. It just keeps going round and round, forever.
Water evaporates when the Sun warms it, condenses into clouds as it cools, falls back down as precipitation, then starts the whole trip over again forever.
Watch it
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.