Wednesday 17th March 2021

L.C. To describe and understand key aspects of the water cycle using appropriate vocabulary.

Have you ever wondered how, even though billions of people use water every day, we never run out?

This is because of one of nature’s most amazing inventions, that has been around for millions of years.

Do you know what this is called?

The is called The Water Cycle.

We have the same amount of water on Earth as we did thousands of years ago. The Water Cycle recycles the water over and over again. 

The Water Cycle has 6 key features. These can be seen on the image below. We will discuss these below.

This is what each of them mean:

Precipitation - This is when water falls to the earth through rain, snow, sleet or hail. 
 

Infiltration- Water is soaked up into the Earth’s surface.

Runoff - The water, that has not been soaked up, ‘runs off’ the Earths surface into a water source. Water sources are banks of water such as lakes, oceans/seas, rivers and streams.

Evaporation - The water from a water source changes into vapour due to the warmth from the sun. The vapour invisibly rises into the air.

Transpiration - Water can also be released into the air through plants and trees.

Condensation - The vapours cool down in the sky turning back into a liquid. This liquid is then stored in clouds.

Once the clouds become too heavy, water falls to the ground- Precipitation. This starts The Water Cycle again.

Watch the video to see this explained.

On Seesaw, can you label the water cycle with the following labels.