Shodor Foundation The Neuse River Education Team NCSU Water Quality Group

Water cycle experiment results

Water has three states which it can be in. Water can be a solid (ice), a liquid (water), or a gas (water vapor, steam). The state that water is in depends on the temperature. If the temperature of the water is at or below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) MOST of the water molecules are in their solid form. If the temperature is at or above 100 degrees celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit) MOST of the water is in a gaseous form as water vapor. Anywhere in between zero and 100 means that MOST of the water is in its liquid stage.

When the bag sits in the window, it begins to heat up from the energy of the sunlight which strikes it. When the water begins to heat up, some of it will evaporate and change from a liquid form into a gaseous form. The gaseous from will diffuse into the air, where it will stay until it loses some of its energy (energy is often measured by the temperature. Temperature is the average energy of a substance). Many times this will happen when the water droplets come into contact with the exterior of the bag, which is cooled by the air circulating outside the bag. When this happens the water will condense, and change from a gas back into a liquid.

This process models what happens on earth. We have vast quantities of water in the ocean and in lakes which iss heated by the sun. Some of the water evaporates and rises into the atmosphere. When it gets up to a certain point, it cools enough to form water droplets, which then fall back to the earth as either rain or snow!

Let's go back for more experiments! Go back to the Water Cycle experiment Let's go back to the Introductory page


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