12 Free water cycle coloring pages and diagrams

Water cycle coloring pages and diagrams

Here are some beautiful free water cycle coloring pages and water cycle diagrams that can be used to teach how water moves around the planet.

The first coloring sheets above and below have already been labeled with most of the important words in the water life cycle. Further down the page, you will find blank water cycle diagrams if you want to get students to label the pages themselves.

You will find quite detailed coloring sheets for teenagesr and middle school students along with some more basic ones for younger children.

What is the water cycle? Here is an explanation in the simplest of terms –

It can also be called the hydrological cycle, it is the circular movement of water on earth. Snow melts, rivers and groundwater flow to the sea, and plants give off water. Due to the heat of the sun, water evaporates and then gathers in clouds which then form rain which falls on land and the process begins again.

This is an essential function for all living things on the planet, nothing can survive without water!

Below right is a transpiration water cycle coloring page. It shows how water moves through plants by going from the soil to the roots of plants before traveling through them.

Later water evaporates through the flowers, leaves, and fruit of plants into the atmosphere where it creates moisture in the air.

Blank water cycle diagrams

These blank water cycle diagrams are perfect for labeling and coloring. You can make these activities quite simple with just a few words or much more complex by adding more arrows and vocabulary. In any case, the pages make for cool water cycle projects.

Younger students can even just label things like trees, the ocean, rivers, rain, the sun, clouds, mountains, and so on.

Here are some useful terms that you might want to use on these pages –

Solar radiation – This is heat from the sun.

Evaporation – When water stops being a liquid and moves into the air (think of steam).

Transpiration – The movement of water into and out of plants.

Condensation – This is when water returns to a liquid state after being a vapor.

Precipitation – When water comes back to the earth in ways such as rain.

Runoff – This is water that travels across the surface of the Earth to the ocean.

Groundwater – This is as its name suggests, water that is underground.