How the Water Cycle

I am learning to inform my audience though an explanation

By Jemima

We use water all the time but we never stop to think where it comes from. Every day water heads off on an amazing adventure called the water cycle. A cycle is an endless circuit that repeats itself over and over again. 97 percent of earth’s water is salt water leaving the last 3 percent to be fresh water, but out of that only 1 percent is drinkable. The three main stages of the water cycle are precipitation, evaporation and condensation. It all begins with one heavy cloud.


The first step of the water cycle is precipitation. Precipitation is when a cloud gets too heavy and full of water and falls in the form of snow, rain, hail or sleet. Precipitation is like a balloon with too much air in it causing it to pop. After it has rained water gathers in oceans, lakes and rivers. It also pools in puddles. That leads us to the next part of our journey.


Straight after a rainy day the concrete is damp with rain water but the next hour it is as dry as a bone. No, the water did not magically disappear it was turned into water vapor with the heat of the sun. The sun steals the water turning it into an invisible gas called water vapor with its heat. The water vapor travels up to the sky and begins the last stage of the water cycle, condensation.

Condensation is when the water vapor in the sky is cooled and turned back into water droplets and made into clouds. As you get higher in the sky the atmosphere will get colder dropping down to around one degree celsius which is what turns the water vapor back to water molecules to form a cloud. Once a cloud has collected too much water it will get rid of it with precipitation.


So next time you take a drink or wash yourself take a second to think about the fabulous journey it has taken and how you might be drinking water a dinosaur bathed in thousands of years ago. The water on earth is so important and we must all play our part to use less water and protect it.