24 L3-Wonderful Water

Oxford Read and Discover level 3 Wonderful Water

Introduction Water is all around us. We have liquid water in rivers and oceans. We have frozen water in ice and glaciers, and we have water vapor in clouds and steam. Water is very important. How many oceans are there? What is the biggest ocean animal? How much water do we use to take a bath? What percent (%) of our body is water? Discover! Now read and discover more about wonderful water!

Chapter 1 Salt Water About 70% of Earth is covered with water. Most of the water is in the oceans. There are five oceans the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean. The largest ocean is the Pacific Ocean. It's 156 million square kilometers. It's about 15 times bigger than the USA! There are also many seas on Earth. The largest sea is the South China Sea. It's 3 million square kilometers. One of the smallest seas is the Marmara Sea. It's only about 11,000 square kilometers. All the water in the oceans and seas is salt water. Discover! The Dead Sea is about 30% salt. It's the saltiest sea on Earth. It's so salty, you can float in it!

Chapter 2 Fresh Water About 3% of the water on Earth is fresh water. Most of this fresh water is frozen. It's ice. It's in glaciers or polar ice caps. Some of the fresh water is in lakes and rivers. One of the biggest lakes on Earth is Lake Superior in North America. It's about 82,000 square kilometers. The longest river on Earth is the River Nile in Africa. It's about 6,700 kilometers long. Some of the fresh water is in the sky. It's in the clouds and the rain. Some of the water is in the soil, in rocks, or under the ground in caves. Discover! Most of Earth is covered with water, but only about 1% is fresh water that we can drink. The rest is salt water or ice.

Chapter 3 The Water Cycle Do you know where water comes from? When it rains, water falls from the sky. This is called precipitation. Rainwater goes into streams. Stream water goes into rivers. River water goes into seas and oceans. When it's sunny, the ocean water gets warm. Some water goes up into the sky. This is called evaporation. The water in the sky makes clouds. Then it rains again. This is called the water cycle. Discover! We're lucky to have water in our homes! About one billion people don't have clean water in their homes. Most of the water we use comes from rivers and reservoirs. Clean water goes through pipes to our homes.

Chapter 4 Water at Home We use a lot of water at home. We drink water and we cook with water. We also use water for washing. We use about 80 liters of water when we take a bath. We use about 27 liters of water when we take a shower. We use water to brush our teeth and we also need water to flush the toilet. We use about 9 liters of water every time we flush. We use water to wash and clean other things, too. We wash the dishes with water. We wash clothes with water. We wash and clean everything in the house with water!