Take a journey from the deep blue ocean to the clouds and back down to earth.
Every time you take a sip of water, you might be drinking the same molecules that a Tyrannosaurus Rex once drank! This is because Earth recycles its water in a never-ending journey called the water cycle. It starts with the sun heating up the water in our oceans and Beresford Market puddles. This causes evaporation (when liquid turns into gas), sending invisible water vapour high into the sky.
As the vapour rises, it cools down and turns back into liquid droplets. This is called condensation. These droplets huddle together to form clouds. When the clouds get too heavy and the droplets join to become big drops, gravity pulls them down as precipitation (rain, snow, or hail). This water then flows into streams, rivers, and eventually the sea, ready to start the whole trip again.
In Jersey, our water cycle is very important because we don’t have many natural springs. Most of our rain is caught in big reservoirs (man-made lakes), like Val de la Mare. This stored water is cleaned and sent to your taps. Without the water cycle constantly moving water from the sea to the sky and back to our island, we would quickly run out of things to drink!
