Download The sun`s energy is the driving force behind the water cycle. The sun

The sun’s energy is the driving force behind the water cycle. The sun heats
up water on land and in the oceans, lakes, and seas. The water changes
from liquid to vapor in a process called evaporation. The water vapor cools
and in a process called condensation forms droplets in the atmosphere.
These droplets become clouds. The droplets (or ice crystals if it’s cold
enough) gather and then fall from the sky in a process called precipitation.
This precipitation gathers in streams and rivers and flows and becomes run
off, flowing back down to the oceans, seas, and lakes.
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Definitions of Terms:
• The Water Cycle: The continuous process by which water moves
from Earth’s surface to the atmosphere and back, passing through
the living and nonliving parts of the environment.
• Water Vapor: the invisible, gaseous form of water.
• Make sure you understand that fog and clouds are NOT water
vapor, they are made of tiny droplets of condensed water
(liquid). WATER VAPOR IS INVISIBLE.
• Groundwater: Water that fills the cracks and pores in underground
soil and rock layers.
• Evaporation: The process by which molecules at the surface of a
liquid, such as water, absorb enough energy to change to a gaseous
state, such as water vapor.
• Transpiration: The process by which plants release water vapor
through their leaves.
• Condensation: The process by which a gas, such as water vapor,
changes to a liquid, such as water.
• Precipitation: Forms of water, such as rain, snow, sleet or hail that
fall from clouds and reach Earth’s surface.
• Photosynthesis: The process by which plants use water, plus
carbon dioxide and energy from the sun, to make food.
• Accumulation: When water flows down mountains/high altitudes into
larger bodies of water.
• The water accumulates in rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. These
bodies of water are known as reservoirs.
• Infiltration: When water seeps into the soil, between rocks, etc. and
becomes ground water.