Video narration
On a sunny day, you watch a puddle grow smaller, and wonder where its water goes. The sun warms it, and some liquid water changes into an invisible gas called water vapor, rising into the air. That change is evaporation. Your puddle's water keeps traveling upward, where cooler air chills the vapor. It turns into tiny liquid droplets that gather in clouds; this is condensation. The water hasn't vanished. It has changed form and traveled. When droplets join and grow, water falls from clouds as rain, snow, or sleet. That falling is precipitation. A rain shower can fill a puddle again, while water also travels elsewhere. Then water runs downhill over hills, joining streams and rivers, and gathering in lakes and oceans. Some of it warms and rises again. Your puddle is one stop on that journey: water rises, falls, and flows into the wider world.