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Water Cycle Interactions Worksheet

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Water Cycle Interactions Worksheet

Read each question carefully. Choose the best answer where options are given, and use complete sentences for written responses.

Water Cycle Basics

1.Which Earth system includes oceans, rivers, lakes, glaciers, and groundwater?

Atmosphere
Hydrosphere
Geosphere
Biosphere

2.A shallow pond warms in the sunshine, and some of its liquid water enters the air as an invisible gas. Which process is happening?

Condensation
Precipitation
Evaporation
Infiltration

3.Select all forms of precipitation that can travel from clouds down to Earth's surface.

Rain
Snow
Hail
Water vapor rising from a lake

4.Complete the sequence: Sunlight heats surface water and causes . As water vapor cools, forms. Water returns to Earth's surface as .

5.After a storm in a national park, some water travels downhill across a trail, while some enters the soil. Explain how runoff differs from infiltration.

Reading: Water Across Earth's Systems

During a visit to a national park, Elijah notices mist rising above a lake on a warm morning. The Sun's energy changes some lake water into water vapor, which rises into the atmosphere. Higher in the cooler air, the vapor condenses into tiny droplets that gather as clouds. Later, rain falls on the park's ridges. Some water flows over the ground into a creek, and some seeps through soil and rock into underground spaces. Nearby plants take up water through their roots and release some of it into the air from their leaves. Water keeps moving among the air, bodies of water, land, and living things.

6.According to the passage, what do plants do that returns water to the atmosphere?

Their roots turn rocks into clouds.
They release water vapor from their leaves.
They make rain fall from the atmosphere.
They prevent water from entering the soil.

7.What happens to water vapor in the cooler air above the lake, and what does it help form?

8.Use two details from the passage to explain how water moves between at least three Earth systems.

Model and Apply

9.Draw a water-cycle model. Label the processes in which surface water becomes vapor, vapor forms clouds, water falls from clouds, water gathers at the surface, water flows over land, and water soaks into the ground. Use arrows to show how water moves.

10.Put these events in a sensible order, starting with energy from the Sun: water vapor cools and forms clouds; water gathers in a lake or ocean; water flows over land into a stream; rain falls onto land; sunlight changes surface water into vapor; some rainwater soaks into the soil. The soil-soaking and surface-flow events can happen in either order after rain.

11.On a sunny day, a puddle becomes smaller as water changes into vapor. Name the two Earth systems interacting and describe how they interact.

12.Predict one way the water cycle could change if Earth had no plants. Explain your prediction using a process described in the passage.