Directions: If you agree with the statement, put an √ beside it. If you disagree with the statement, put an X beside it. ____ 1. The water cycle moves through living and non-living parts of the environment. ____ 2. Evaporation is the change of a solid to a liquid. ____ 3. Plants are a participating part of the water cycle.

What do all of these have in common!

Did you say!!!!

The water cycle begins with water. Water is found in many places. A few of them are as follows: Lakes, rivers, oceans, ponds, puddles and many other places.

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

Transpiration Transpiration is the process by which plants lose water out of their leaves. Transpiration gives evaporation a bit of a hand in getting the water vapor back up into the air.

The next stage is condensation. This is where warm and cold air collide and form ice crystals that condense and form droplets of water. These water droplets eventually become to heavy and begin to fall in the form of precipitation.

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, sleet, snow or hail.

The next stage is runoff. The water seeps through the soil and ends up in the water table. It then flows into the streams, lakes, oceans, and other bodies of water. The process is then repeated again and again.

Then what? Right! It starts all over again! That is why it is called a cycle.