The water cycle is the continuous journey water takes from the sea, to the sky, to the land and back to the sea.

The movement of water around our planet is vital to life as it supports plants and animals. Powered by the Sun, the water cycle is happening all the time, though some parts of the cycle take hundreds of years (for example, some of the Earth's water is frozen in polar regions).

Water from the earth’s oceans is heated by the sun’s rays which causes it to change into a gas and rise into the air (this is called evaporation).

Once high up in the sky, the gas begins to cool and turns back into a liquid (condensation).

The water droplets form clouds which become heavy and fall from the sky in the form of rain, hail or snow; this is called precipitation.