It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {The Water Cycle: Part 7 - Precipitation}

This is the seventh part of Frannie’s exploration of the water cycle. Please check out her previous blog on the overview of the water cycle and her deep dives into groundwater, discharge, surface water, evaporation, and condensation.

Welcome back to Frannie’s exploration of the water cycle! The yellow bead on Frannie’s water cycle bracelet represents precipitation. Even though it’s a big word, we are all very familiar with many different kinds of precipitation like rain, hail, sleet, and snow!

Precipitation is water that falls from the sky. The tiny water droplets are big enough to form visible clouds but not yet big enough to fall. Precipitation happens when millions of cloud droplets collide together to form a single raindrop or through another process where ice crystals are rapidly formed into snow or hail.

One quick clarification, though: fog and mist are not types of precipitation. They are actually suspensions, which means that the water vapor has not condensed enough to precipitate.

Precipitation is not the only way water can move from the sky to the ground. Back when Frannie was investigating evaporation, she touched on the concept of sublimation, where solid forms of water can become vapor without ever entering the liquid phase.

Deposition, or desublimation, is the opposite of that. In sub-freezing air, water vapor can turn directly into ice. It’s very possible you’ve already seen this process in action. On very cold winter days, water vapor goes through process of deposition to become the frost, also known as hoarfrost, that you can see coating plant stems, spiderwebs, and wires.

Join Frannie next time as she finds out where all that water goes once its back on the ground!

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {The Water Cycle: Part 6 - Condensation}

This is the sixth part of Frannie’s exploration of the water cycle. Please check out her previous blog on the overview of the water cycle and her deep dives into groundwater, discharge, surface water, and evaporation.

Welcome back to Frannie’s exploration of the water cycle! Condensation is represented by the white bead on Frannie’s water cycle bracelet. Before we can understand condensation, we have to look at one of water’s coolest properties.

Water droplets have 2 amazing superpowers. The first one is called “cohesion”, which means that the molecules like to stick together. You can see this water property in action with a very simple experiment.

1) Fill a glass of water to the rim.
2) Once it looks full, continue to add water drop by drop.

Even though the water is technically over the rim of the glass, it isn’t spilling because the drops are cohering to each other.

A water droplet's second superpower is known as "adhesion", which means that molecules like to stick to other things. You can see this water property in action in another very simple experiment.

1) On a warm day, fill up a glass with ice and water.
2) Leave it out on a table for a few minutes.

Observe the water that collects on the outside of the glass. The glass isn't leaking - water vapor from the air is cooling down and sticking, or adhering, to the outside of the glass.

After water vapor rises into the air, it starts to cool and seek out non-gaseous particles, known as Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCNs). When water vapor makes contact with CCNs, it adheres. It then cools and transitions from vapor to liquid droplets, as clouds would have in low and intermediate elevations, or solid ice crystals, as clouds would have high up in the atmosphere. Clouds grow when more water molecules cool and cohere together in the process known as condensation.

Condensation is an exothermic process, which means it releases heat. Convection, which is movement of a fluid in response to heat, and advection, which is the movement of a material that is suspended in a fluid such as a CCN, are two other important processes at this stage in the water cycle.  They are responsible not only for carrying clouds over the ocean and land, but also for our next step in the water cycle – the precipitation of water from the clouds.

Join Frannie next time as she heads back down to the ground with precipitation!

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Water Cycle Bangles}

Water cycle bangles have become popular accessories at recent science fairs and environmental festivals. Today, Frannie will help you make your own.

The water cycle describes all the pathways a water drop can move through the atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere (air, land, and water systems). There are many steps to the water cycle, so making a water cycle bangle will help you remember them all!

Here's what you will need:

• A Pipe cleaner (or string, twine, strip of leather, etc.)
• 7/8" pony beads in eight different colors (2-3 beads of each color)
• A Water cycle illustration (there is one provided below)

Instructions:

1. Review the water cycle vocabulary.  Each word represents a different stage of the water cycle.  Check out Frannie's water cycle post to get familiar with vocabulary terms.
2. Assign each vocabulary word a different color bead.
3. Pick a place in the water cycle illustration below to begin your journey.
4. Twist a loop on one end of the pipe cleaner or tie a knot in the end of your string. This will prevent the beads from sliding off the end.
5. Add a bead to your pipe cleaner and decide where to go next.  Use the water cycle illustration above to help you decide.  Remember if you start in a cloud you can't directly go to the lake, you must first become rain (or another form of precipitation: Can you name one?)
6. Each new place traveled will earn you a new bead.
7. After you have completed the water cycle a few times, connect the ends of your pipe cleaner to create a bangle bracelet to wear!

Frannie loves her bangle!  Now if someone asks her about it, she can share what she learned about the water cycle!

This activity is featured in the Let's Keep It Clean - "Brownie" Girl Scout Patch guide book. By completing two activities from the booklet you earn your Ask Me About Groundwater patch.  Get inspired and do more to earn your Let's Keep It Clean patch!