Label the Water Cycle

Activity Overview

When students are learning about the water cycle, it's helpful for them to have a diagram that shows each step in one image. In this activity, students will create their own water cycle diagrams. You can differentiate or scaffold this activity by adding or removing information from the template or instructions. Students are also encouraged to provide a description of each step or the cycle as a whole using textables or the cell and description layout.

Water Cycle Description

The water cycle has no starting point, but this guide will start its description in the ocean.

The ocean is the largest store of water on Earth. Water evaporates from here, as well as rivers and lakes, when the surface is heated by the Sun. This warm, wet air rises because it is less dense than the other air around it. Higher up in the atmosphere, the water condenses to form clouds. Precipitation happens when the water particles cool and form bigger droplets. Depending on the temperature, these droplets fall as rain, frozen rain, snow, and hail.

Some of this precipitation falls straight back into water and some other precipitation falls onto the land. Some of this water flows across the surface of the ground; this is called surface runoff. This happens when the water can’t permeate into the ground. Other water infiltrates the ground and travels underground. This is known as groundwater flow. Eventually all this water runs into streams and lakes, and ultimately back into the sea for the water to go through this cycle again.

Some of the water gets absorbed by plants which they use for photosynthesis. Most plants get their water from the soil using their roots. The plants then need to move this water to their leaves where photosynthesis takes place. They do this using tubes in their stems called xylem. The process used to move the water is called transpiration.