Education - Students

What is Water?

Everyone has seen, touched and tasted water. You drink it everyday and use it for many things at home. Have you ever wondered what water is?

Water is a very simple substance, and in most cases it doesn’t have a colour, taste or smell. You have probably heard of the scientific name for water, H2O. The number two means there are two hydrogen atoms, which are bound to a single oxygen atom. This combination is called a water molecule.

What’s in a Drop?

Put a drop of water in your hand. Did you know that you are in fact holding millions of water molecules clumped together? A water drop that isn’t pure may also have other things in it, like salts and minerals, or pollution.

Can Water Change?

When you use water it is usually in its liquid form (or liquid state). Do you know the other states that water can be in? Think about what you see coming out of the kettle when it boils, or what happens to water in the freezer!

That’s right – water can also exist as a gas (steam or water vapour) and a solid (ice).

Challenge! When water changes from one state to another, the process has a special name. Find out the scientific name for the processes below.

From solid to liquid – M_ _ _ _ _ _
From liquid to solid – F _ _ _ _ _ _ _
From liquid to gas – E _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
From gas to liquid – C _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Where in the World is Water?

Remember the last time you went on holidays, was it to the beach, a lake or a river? Wherever you went, you probably saw or played in water.

Water is found in many places, but 97% of it is found in the world's oceans and seas as saltwater. The other 3% is the type of water that we drink - freshwater. As well as rivers, lakes and creeks, freshwater is also found in places that you may not have seen before...like underground, or frozen as ice in Antarctica!

That's a Big Number!

If you were to take all the water in the world and pour it into ordinary one litre milk bottles, you would need 1,397,918,500,000,000,000,000 bottles!

Want to know more?

What is Water fact sheet (95KB)

Please note: South East Water Ltd grants educational institutions permission to use material from this site without incurring copywriting costs.