The Water Cycle

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The Water Cycle

• By Jennifer Leahy

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Objectives

• You will be able to develop a hypothesis on how
  the water cycle works
• You will be able to identify how the water cycle
  recycles the earths water
• You will be able to use your knowledge of
  landforms and geographical features in your
  explanation of the water cycle
• You will be able to apply your new understandings
  of key terms in paragraph form

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What is the water cycle?

• The Water Cycle (also known as the hydrologic
  cycle) is the journey water takes as it
  circulates from the land to the sky and back
  again.

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How does it work?

• The Sun's heat provides energy to evaporate water
  from the Earth's surface (oceans, lakes, etc.).
• Plants also lose water to the air. The water
  vapor eventually condenses, forming tiny droplets
  in clouds.
• When the clouds meet cool air over land,
  precipitation (rain, sleet, or snow) is
  triggered, and water returns to the land (or
  sea).
• Some of the precipitation soaks into the ground.
  Some of the underground water is trapped between
  rock or clay layers this is called groundwater.
  But most of the water flows downhill as runoff,
  eventually returning to the seas as slightly
  salty water.

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How it works
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Words to know

• Evaporation   Evaporation is when the sun heats
  up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and
  turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or
  steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes
  into the air.

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Words continued

• Condensation    Water vapor in the air gets cold
  and changes back into liquid, forming
  clouds. This is called condensation.
• You can see the same sort of thing at home...
  pour a glass of cold water on a hot day and watch
  what happens.  Water forms on the outside of the
  glass.  That water didn't somehow leak through
  the glass!  It actually came from the air.  Water
  vapor in the warm air, turns back into liquid
  when it touches the cold glass.

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More words to know

• Precipitation  Precipitation occurs when so much
  water has condensed that the air cannot hold it
  anymore.  The clouds get heavy and water falls
  back to the earth in the form of rain, hail,
  sleet or snow.

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Words continued

• Collection  When water falls back to earth as
  precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans,
  lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. 
• When it ends up on land, it will either soak
  into the earth and become part of the ground
  water that plants and animals use to drink or it
  may run over the soil and collect in the oceans,
  lakes or rivers where the cycle starts
• Then it starts all over again!!

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Lets see

• You will observe different types of weather
  patterns and different types of climates in
  different regions.
• This will be done by using the internet and
  library books to browse different parts of the
  world and regions.

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Lets make our own Water Cycle!!

• You will set up an aquarium that resembles a
  landscape.
• Soil will act as mountains, plateaus, hills and
  lake basins.
• You will fill a bowl with water and that will act
  as the lake. 
• You will then cover the container with plastic
  wrap and secure it with rubber bands or tape.

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continued

• A heat lamp will be placed on
• one end of the container to speed up the
  process and a bag of ice will be placed on the
  other end of the container as well.
• You will then make predictions on what will
  happen to the elements inside the container.

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Then what?

• You will observe the changes and the
  transformations that take place over the next few
  days.
• You will then take out your science journals and
  document the changes and any other observations
  that take place within the container.

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continued

• You will then watch for condensation that
  develops on the plastic "sky" and record the
  observations in your journals.
• Then you will take your new knowledge and
  construct a diagram using the words previously
  discussed and label each part of the diagram
  correctly and accordingly.

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Evaluation

• You will then write a paragraph explaining what
  happened inside the container and why you believe
  those events took place.
• You are to then use the vocabulary words that
  were previously discussed with in the paragraphs.
  
• Each paragraph will be attached to your drawing
  of the diagram and will be hung up around the
  room, for everyone to view your final products!!

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Homework

• Read the chapter in the text book on the Water
  Cycle and write down the vocabulary words with
  the definitions including a sentence for each
  vocabulary word.

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Resources

• http // www. Col-ed.org
• http // www. zoomschool.com
• http // www.Kidzone.com
• http // Wikipedia.org