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Make It Rain

Get Your Hands Dirty

on April 1, 2021

Sometimes we feel disappointed when rain spoils our baseball game or keeps us trapped indoors. But God created rain to do a really important job for us and the earth. Rain gives us fresh water to drink and helps flowers, trees, and crops grow. Because of rain, we get to enjoy the beauty of flowers, eat the food that crops provide, and use materials from trees to make things.

Rain is an important part of earth’s never-ending water cycle. The water cycle begins when the sun warms the earth. The heat turns liquid water into water vapor (the gas form of water). This process is called “evaporation.” The water vapor rises into the air. As it cools, it turns back into liquid, forming into little droplets. These little droplets collect to form clouds. When large droplets of water get too heavy for the clouds to hold, they fall to earth as rain.

Water that falls from the sky is called “precipitation.” Rain is the liquid form of precipitation that falls to the earth. (When water droplets freeze, they make solid forms of precipitation—hail, sleet, and snow.) After rain falls back to earth, the water cycle can begin all over again.

In the Bible, we read that God “gives rain on the earth and sends water on the fields” (Job 5:10). The Lord provides for our needs in many ways, including rain.

Want to make your own rainstorm? Let’s do a simple experiment to see how rain works.

Buddy Davis

Hello there! I’m Buddy Davis, the host of Out and About on Answers TV. Let’s get our hands a little dirty as we investigate God’s amazing creation.

Rain Experiment

Materials

  • drinking glass
  • small bowl
  • spoon
  • shaving cream
  • liquid food coloring

Experiment

  1. Fill the drinking glass about halfway with water.
  2. Cover the surface of the water with an even layer of shaving cream. The shaving cream is your cloud.
  3. In your small bowl, combine half a cup of water and 10 drops of food coloring.
  4. One spoonful at a time, add the colored water to the top of the shaving cream.
  5. The shaving cream holds liquid the same way clouds do. When the shaving cream cloud becomes full, the colored water will rain down into the glass—just like a cloud rains down onto the ground.