Walter’s Journey through the Water Cycle

Walter is a liquid water molecule. He has spent the last 2,000 years of his life swimming around the ocean. His favorite thing to do is to chase the sea animals around.

One day, Walter was swimming too close to the surface. He was starting to feel very hot from the sun’s energy. All of the sudden, he started flying! He was evaporating into water vapor!

1. Sun’s energy: radiant light and heat from the Sun
2. Evaporating: the process of turning from liquid into vapor.

Walter kept flying up and up until he started to feel cold. He was condensing into a liquid! Walter and other water particles formed a cloud.

1. Condense: change from a gas or vapor to a liquid

Walter and some of his friends started to clump together. Once they got big and heavy enough, gravity pulled them back down to the surface as rain. Walter was precipitating!

1. Gravity: the force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth
2. Precipitate: liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to the Earth. It comes in many forms, like rain, sleet, and snow.

Walter landed on a glacier on the top of a mountain! He froze on the surface and is now a solid ice particle.

The glacier Walter is on melts from the sunlight and he turns back into a liquid. Walter flows down the mountain in a river.

Walter’s journey back to the ocean is interrupted when an animal drinks him.

A couple of days later, Walter is excreted from the giraffe and soaks into the ground. He is now groundwater.

After a very, very long time, Walter filters through the soil and makes it back to the ocean. This process, called the water cycle, will continue for eternity. Maybe you will meet Walter someday.