Maybe you recycle cans, glass, and paper. Do you know that nature recycles, too? One of the things nature (1) is water. Water goes from oceans, lakes, and rivers into the air. Water falls from the air as (2) or snow. Rain and snow eventually find their way back to the oceans. Nature’s recycling program for water is (3) the water cycle.

The water cycle has four stages: storage, evaporation, precipitation, and runoff. Water on Earth gets stored (4) oceans, lakes, rivers, ice, and even underground. Water goes from storage into the atmosphere by a process called evaporation. When water evaporates, it changes from a liquid (5) a gas, called water vapor. Water vapor goes up into (6) atmosphere. Water returns to the Earth as precipitation in rain or snow by changing into drops of water (7) the air gets cold enough. Clouds are collections (8) water droplets.

Water that falls on land always flows from (9) places to lower ones. This flow is called runoff. Water from land flows into streams. Streams join together to make (10) and eventually the water flows into storage in the oceans.