Name: ______________________________________
Date: ________________________
Water Cycle Practice
Vocabulary: aquifer, condensation, evaporation, freezing, glacier, melting, phase change,
precipitation, reservoir, runoff, transpiration, water cycle
Question: What are the parts of the water cycle?
1. A phase change is a change from one state to another, such as from a liquid to a gas. Fill
in the blanks with the words “liquid,” “gas,” or “solid” to define each change.
Evaporation:
Change from a _______________ to a _______________.
Condensation:
Change from a _______________ to a _______________.
Melting:
Change from a _______________ to a _______________.
Freezing:
Change from a _______________ to a _______________.
2. Practice: Fill in the process that causes each transition. Your choices are evaporation,
evapotranspiration, infiltration, runoff, condensation, and precipitation.
A. Ocean  Atmosphere
_______________________
B. Atmosphere  Clouds
_______________________
C. Cloud  Snow
_______________________
D. Glacier (melts & flows into)  River
_______________________
E. Plant  Atmosphere
_______________________
3. A drop of water goes visits the following reservoirs. Fill in the cycle steps accordingly.
The water begins in the ocean and moves to the atmosphere through the process of
_____________________. As the air cools, it begins to change from a gas back to a liquid
in a cloud. It is going through______________________. When the cloud gets full it falls
down as snow through the step of ____________________. It lands on a hill. It eventually
melts, and the liquid runs into a lake. This is an example of __________________. A tree
soaks it up through plant uptake and eventually sweats out the water. It turns to a gas and
heads to the atmosphere again through the process of____________________. Once again
it turns to liquid through the process of ___________because the air is cooler in the
atmosphere. When the cloud gets too full, it comes down as a different type of
_________________, rain. The rain hits the ground and moves into the soil through the
process of ______________________.
4.
A. What is an aquifer?
B. What is a reservoir? List an example of a water reservoir.
C. How could runoff be a problem?
5. Water covers over two-thirds of Earth’s surface. Yet, water shortages are a major problem
for many people around the world. Why is this case? (Use your own words!! Think about the
video we watched)