🌱 Sprout · Printable packSCIENCE · YEAR 4

The water cycle

Name Date
🎯 What you'll learn - tick each one off!
📖 Learn

The water cycle explained

Water on Earth never stops moving. It travels between the ocean, sky and land in a loop called the water cycle, powered entirely by energy from the Sun.

Evaporation Condensation Precipitation Collection

The cycle has four stages. In evaporation, the Sun heats water in oceans, rivers and lakes until it changes from a liquid into an invisible gas called water vapour, which rises into the sky. In condensation, that vapour cools high in the air and changes back from a gas into billions of tiny liquid droplets. Those droplets are what a cloud actually is: a cloud is not made of water vapour, it is made of tiny liquid drops floating together. In precipitation, the droplets bump together and grow until they are heavy enough to fall as rain, hail or snow. In collection, that fallen water gathers again in oceans, rivers, lakes and the ground, ready for the Sun to evaporate it once more.

Trace one drop of ocean water through the cycle. Step 1: the Sun heats the ocean surface and the drop evaporates into invisible water vapour. Step 2: the vapour rises, cools and condenses into a tiny liquid droplet inside a cloud. Step 3: the droplet joins millions of others until the cloud is heavy, and it falls as precipitation, rain. Step 4: the rain lands in a river and flows back to the ocean, collection, ready to evaporate again.
Water vapour is invisible, you cannot see it in the air. What you see in a cloud or in fog is liquid water, not gas.
evaporationcondensationprecipitationcollection
✏️ Activity 1

Label the water cycle

Look at the water cycle picture below. Write the correct stage name in each empty box: evaporation, condensation, precipitation or collection.

✏️ Activity 2

True or false

Read each statement about the water cycle. Write T for true or F for false in the blank.

  1. The Sun provides the energy that drives the whole water cycle.
  2. Evaporation happens when liquid water turns into a gas called water vapour.
  3. Clouds are made of water vapour.
  4. Condensation happens when water vapour cools and turns back into an invisible gas.
  5. Collection is when water gathers again in oceans, rivers, lakes and the ground.
✏️ Activity 3

Order the water cycle

The stages of the water cycle are listed below in the wrong order. Evaporation from the ocean is stage 1. Write the correct stage number, 1 to 4, in each blank.

  1. Condensation
  2. Evaporation
  3. Collection
  4. Precipitation
✏️ Activity 4

Match process to description

Match each stage of the water cycle to its description. Write the matching letter in each blank.

  1. Evaporation
  2. Condensation
  3. Precipitation
  4. Collection
  1. Droplets in a cloud grow heavy and fall as rain, hail or snow.
  2. The Sun heats water and changes it from a liquid into an invisible gas.
  3. Water gathers again in oceans, rivers, dams and the ground.
  4. Water changes from a gas into tiny liquid droplets, forming a cloud.
📖 Learn

Australia's fresh water sources

Australia gets its fresh water from several places. Rivers and dams collect water on the surface, groundwater is water that has soaked down through soil and rock and is stored underground, and many homes, especially in the country, catch rain from the roof in a rain tank.

The water cycle never runs out, because water is never created or destroyed, it only changes state and moves to a new place. The same water that fell as rain thousands of years ago is still evaporating, condensing and falling today, just in a different spot. That is why the amount of water on Earth stays roughly the same, even though people, plants and animals use it every day.

Follow a raindrop that falls on a farm near Dubbo. Some of it soaks into the soil and becomes groundwater, moving slowly through the rock until it reaches a river. Some of it flows straight over the ground into a creek, then a river, then a dam. Some of it lands on the farmhouse roof and is caught in a rain tank for drinking and washing. All three paths lead back into the same water cycle.
Dams, rain tanks and bores do not make new water, they only store water that is already part of the cycle.
riversdamsgroundwaterrain tank
✏️ Activity 5

Why water never runs out

Use everything you have learnt about the water cycle and Australia's water sources to answer these questions.

Explain what happens to a drop of ocean water from the moment it evaporates until it falls back to Earth as rain. Use the words evaporation, condensation and precipitation in your answer.

Name two places, other than the ocean, where fresh water is stored in Australia.

Why does the water cycle never run out of water, even though people use it every single day?

A farmer waters her crops with water from a dam. Some of that water evaporates into the air on a hot day. Explain how that same water could end up falling as rain somewhere else, weeks later.

🔑 Answer sheet

For the parent or supervisor: set this page aside before handing over the worksheet.

Activity 1

Evaporation Condensation Precipitation Collection
  1. Evaporation
  2. Condensation
  3. Precipitation
  4. Collection

Activity 2

  1. True. The Sun's heat is what powers the whole water cycle.
  2. True. The Sun changes liquid water into invisible water vapour.
  3. False. Clouds are made of tiny liquid water droplets, not water vapour.
  4. False. Condensation turns water vapour into tiny liquid droplets, it does not stay as a gas.
  5. True. Collection is water gathering again in oceans, rivers, lakes and the ground.

Activity 3

  1. Condensation, stage 2
  2. Evaporation, stage 1
  3. Collection, stage 4
  4. Precipitation, stage 3

Activity 4

  1. Evaporation, B
  2. Condensation, D
  3. Precipitation, A
  4. Collection, C

Activity 5

  1. Model answer: the drop evaporates from the ocean when the Sun heats it, turning it into invisible water vapour. The vapour rises and cools, condensing into a tiny liquid droplet inside a cloud. The droplet grows heavy with millions of others and falls back to Earth as precipitation, rain.
  2. Any two of: rivers, dams, groundwater, rain tanks.
  3. The cycle never runs out because water is never created or destroyed, it only changes state and moves between the ocean, sky and land, so the same water is used again and again.
  4. The dam water evaporates into invisible water vapour, rises and cools, condenses into tiny liquid droplets that form a cloud, and later falls as precipitation somewhere else, so it can return as rain weeks later.

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