The Water Cycle

• The water cycle is the continuous journey of water between the oceans, land, and the atmosphere.
• Four main steps: evaporation (water rises as vapour), condensation (vapour cools into clouds), precipitation (rain, snow, or hail falls), and collection (water gathers in rivers, lakes, and oceans).
• The water cycle repeats endlessly, powered by heat from the Sun.
• To connect evaporation and condensation topics into one complete natural cycle.

Level 1 — The four main steps

Verbal: The Sun heats water in oceans, rivers, and lakes, causing evaporation. The vapour rises, cools, and condenses into clouds. When droplets in clouds become heavy enough, they fall as precipitation (rain/snow). This water collects in rivers, lakes, and oceans, ready to evaporate again.

Symbolic: Evaporation → Condensation → Precipitation → Collection → (repeat).

Everyday link: Rain falling today may be water that evaporated from a faraway ocean days earlier.

Level 2 — Why the water cycle keeps going

Verbal: The Sun's heat energy powers the whole cycle by driving evaporation; gravity pulls condensed water back down as precipitation. Since the Sun keeps shining, the cycle never stops.

Real-life: Plants also add water vapour to the air through a process called transpiration (water vapour released from leaves), adding to the water cycle alongside evaporation from oceans and lakes.

Trace a single drop of ocean water through the water cycle back to the ocean.

Step 1 — Sun heats the ocean surface; the drop evaporates into water vapour.
Step 2 — Vapour rises, cools, and condenses into a tiny droplet inside a cloud.
Step 3 — The droplet joins others until it is heavy enough to fall as rain over land.
Step 4 — Rainwater flows into a river, which carries it back to the ocean.
Answer: The drop moves through evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection back to the ocean.

Why does the water cycle never run out of water?

Step 1 — Water only changes form and location; it is not created or destroyed.
Step 2 — Evaporation, condensation, and precipitation simply move the same water around endlessly.
Answer: The same water keeps cycling through the same four steps, so it never runs out.

• Name the four main steps of the water cycle in order.
• What powers evaporation in the water cycle?
• Why does rain eventually return to rivers and oceans?
• Stretch: How might cutting down a large forest affect the local water cycle?

Revision tip: Draw a simple circular diagram with arrows connecting evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection.

Open the Practice tab for graded questions on The Water Cycle.