Extreme weather

What factors can cause extreme weather?

Heat waves, melting glaciers, and rising water levels

Could you relate it to the water cycle?

Heat waves- It connects to evaporation in the water cycle because the heat evaporates the water up to the clouds.

Melting glaciers- When glaciers melt it leaves water so when it evaporates, it evaporates more water and it rains more.

Rising water levels- Glaciers melt and when they melt it leaves water with rises the water levels. With more water that means that more water to evaporate which can lead to heavy rain and constant rain.

Here is my amazing weather report this week! Tune in to our amazing report 🙂

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My life as a droplet

Welcome! My name is Drip and I have an amazing cycle to get to you. Come with me and I’ll show you my life cycle.

It all starts with one step, evaporation! Evaporation is when the liquid from a water source turns into a gas. The gas goes up to the clouds and fills it up with gas. Next we have… condensation! Condensation is when the gas that was evaporated turns into liquid/water again. The last main step is precipitation. You might have heard or even seen precipitation too! Precipitation is when the clouds fill up with too much water and it comes out as rain, snow, hail, sleet and more.

Now you might be thinking how to I come to you and others well, I fall from the clouds and merge into a lake or river. I typically end up in a water facility and go to your tap, but sometimes I like to go on an adventure and go to the Waikato River, Hūnua River, etc. Oh no! It’s evaporation time for me and my friends. I’ll catch you later in my next adventure bye!

Week 3- My river is flowing to…

From the snow caps at the top of Mount Ruapehu the water/ice slowly trickles down Mount Ruapehu and ends up in The Waikato River. The drops of water slowly merges with the river which then flows through the soft plains surrounding the lake. Finally it ends up in Lake Taupo/ocean.

Where did the water go…?

The water could have…

-Went up to the clouds (evaporated)

-Downhill because it was flowing down

-Underground water (it went underground to the water storage until it resurfaces)

-To the ocean (the water precipitated to the ocean)

What I think happened is all of the above because they all connect to each other to make the water cycle!

Here is my water cycle diagram:

Week 1: Water cycle

What do I know about the water cycle:

-There are 4 main steps (Collection, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation)

-Precipitation is when the water from the clouds fall down to the surface.

-Evaporation is when water droplets evaporate from any surface and goes up to the clouds.

-Condensation is when the water vapour changes from gas to liquid.

-Collection is when the water droplets from the clouds fall down as rain, hail, sleet etc.

 

What do I want to know about the water cycle?

-When was the water cycle discovered?

-Who discovered the water cycle?

-How did they know the water was evaporating to the clouds?

-How were the steps of the water cycle named?

 

What did you do on Tuesday’s session?

On Tuesday, Miss Wang set up big pieces of paper around our space with different topics on it like water, air, life cycle, rocks and soil. She told us to think about these topics and write what we know on them. After we all wrote something on all the pieces of paper she brought out jars of ice. She told us to think about does ice connect to these topics and how? For example ice and rocks are both solid until the ice melts. Then we all got on the mat and discussed will ice change its weight or will it stay the same. Most people thought it would change but I thought it wouldn’t change because we aren’t taking or adding anything. Miss Wang boiled some water and put the jars in which helped melt it quicker. After desperate waiting it turns out… my hypothesis was correct! The weight of the water didn’t change.

My water cycle diagram: