water cycle

vocab 1

100

capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid. This is important to every living thing on earth. It means that wherever water goes, either through the air, the ground, or through our bodies, it takes along valuable chemicals, minerals, and nutrients.

universal solvent

200

is the ability of one thing to stick firmly to another. [formal] Better driving equipment will improve track adhesion in slippery conditions. Synonyms: sticking, grip, attachment, cohesion More Synonyms of adhesion.

Adhesion

300

means sticking together. If your group of friends heads to the lunchroom as a team and sits all together, you're demonstrating strong cohesion. Cohesion is a word that comes to us through physics, where cohesion describes particles that are the same and tend to stick together — water molecules, for example.

cohesion

400

situated at or near, coming from, or relating to either of the earth's poles or the area inside the Arctic or Antarctic Circles

polar

500

the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one Celsius degree. The units of specific heat are usually calories or joules per gram per Celsius degree.

specific heat 

vocab 2

100

an aquatic environment with very little salt, like a stream or a pond, or an animal that lives there.

freshwater 

200

is water underground in saturated zones beneath the land surface. Contrary to popular belief, ground water does not form underground "rivers." It fills the pores and fractures in underground materials such as sand, gravel, and other rock.

Ground water 

300

a body of permeable rock which can contain or transmit groundwater.

aquifer

400

 an area of land that drains or “sheds” water into a specific waterbody. Every body of water has a watershed. Watersheds drain rainfall and snowmelt into streams and rivers. These smaller bodies of water flow into larger ones, including lakes, bays, and oceans.

water shed 

500

the total area of land that is drained by a river and all of its tributaries

river basin

vocab 3

100

not permitting passage (as of a fluid) through its substance.

impermeable

200

any substance, usually liquid, which is capable of dissolving one or several substances, thus creating a solution.

solvent

300

a stream feeding a larger stream or a lake

tributaries

400

the cycle of processes by which water circulates between the earth's oceans, atmosphere, and land, involving precipitation as rain and snow, drainage in streams and rivers, and return to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration.

water cycle