2.  The water cycle continually moves water through the living and non-living parts of the environment.

3. The sun’s energy is what drives this cycle.

4.  As the sun warms the surface of a body of water, some of the water molecules change from a liquid to a gas and rise into the atmosphere in a process called evaporation.

5.  Water vapor can also be released into the atmosphere from plants that give off water through their leaves in a process called transpiration. Fun Fact: The thousands of leaves on a single tree may give off 260 liters of water in one day.

6.  The higher in the atmosphere these gas molecules go, the colder it gets, causing them to turn back into liquid water in a process called condensation.  Condensed water droplets in the sky tend to clump together around tiny dust particles, forming clouds.

7.  As more water condenses, the cloud’s water droplets get larger and larger until eventually they fall back down towards Earth in a process called precipitation.

8. - Most precipitation falls directly into the oceans. - Precipitation is the source of all fresh water on and below Earth's surface.

9.  Once the water falls onto Earth, it can take a number of paths before it eventually goes through the cycle again

10.  Precipitation and evaporation are balanced around the world.  We may feel like we are getting a lot of rain, but somewhere in the Sahara Desert, they are barely getting any rain.