The Water Cycle

by John Riggio

Our goal here was to provide a cross curricular song that could describe the process of the water cycle and make it easy to memorize. In our research we found that there were various descriptions of this process, some as simple as two steps (evaporation and precipitation) while others, like the U.S. Geological Survey, were far more detailed, citing 15 steps in the cycle. We decided four steps were enough to be concise and describe the process: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and accumulation.

If you would like to capitalize on the 'round and 'round aspect of the song, you could add a bit of movement to those lyrics: have singers spin around or move arms in a big circle - one clockwise, the other counterclockwise.

The recording of this song is marked by fast moving synths, a lovely electric guitar motif, and high energy rhythm section. The vocals are decidedly syncopated, but pretty easy once you've heard it. The divisis at measures 14 and 46 are optional, but man, do they sound great!

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.