Kid Zone Articles
The Complexity of Water
The most simple of things can show God’s incredible design - two
hydrogen atoms attached to one oxygen atom - the chemical makeup of
water. At first, water might seem fairly simple; but as we will see,
God designed water to work in d some very special ways.
Water is unique (one and only). It occurs naturally in all three
states of matter; solid, liquid, and gas. All are essential for life.
The solid form is ice, snow, and frost. We can’t see water as a gas
because gas is invisible. But it is there as water vapor in the air.
Water can evaporate (or disappear) with the help of heat. Plants also
release water vapor into the air. Even people breathe out water vapor.
Liquid water is the most familiar form of water. It is what runs out of
the tap. It is found as rain, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes and oceans.
It makes up the largest part of the weight of plants, animals and man.
Water is everywhere!
Of all the known liquids, water is by far the best solvent. In
other words, more substances can be dissolved in water than in anything
else. God created water molecules with an interesting placement of
atoms. Two hydrogen atoms with a positive (+) electrical charge are
attached to an oxygen atom with a negative (-) charge in the shape of a
V (with an angle of 104 degrees). Since opposite electrical charges
attract (+ to -), this means that one side of the water or the other
will stick itself to molecules of other substances, such as minerals,
vitamins, oxygen and other gases, depending on their electrical charge.
Water dissolves other materials by tearing their molecules away
from each other. Fortunately, water can’t dissolve everything it
touches. If it did, it would be almost impossible to carry! These same
electrical charges make water molecules stick to one another too, with
very strong holding power. It takes a lot of energy to pull them apart
to change the water’s state from say, solid to liquid, or liquid to
gas. As a result, water has a very high surface tension. In other
words, water is "sticky" and elastic. It tends to bunch up in drops
rather than spread out in a thin film. Surface tension is responsible
for capillary action, which allows water (and things it dissolves) to
move through the roots of plants and through the tiny blood vessels in
our bodies.
Water has a high specific heat index, which means it must lose a
lot of energy in order to cool down. It also absorbs a lot of heat
before it begins to get hot. That makes it very good for doing things
like cooling your car’s radiator. The high specific heat index also
helps regulate the rate at which air changes temperature. This is why
the temperature change between the seasons is slow and gradual rather
than fast and sudden, especially near the oceans. Land heats up and
cools down much faster than water. The different temperatures of land
and water help create wind, which keeps our air fresh. God thought of
everything!
Water freezes at 32°F (Fahrenheit) and boils at 212°F. Water’s
freezing and boiling points are the standard by which temperature is
measured: 0° on the Celsius (C) scale is the freezing point of water,
and 100° C is it’s boiling point.
Water is unusual in the way it freezes. Most liquids freeze from
the bottom up: as they are cooled, their densities (how close the
molecules are packed together) increase steadily. This means that the
warmer layers, being "looser" or less dense, will always rise, and the
cooler or "tighter", more dense liquid will sink to the bottom.
Fortunately, as water cools down, the top layer of water
contracts or becomes denser ("tighter") and sinks to the bottom. Unlike
other liquids, water reaches its maximum density at 39°F, well above
its freezing point (32°F). At this temperature, water stops getting
denser ("tighter") and actually starts to expand as it gets colder. The
top layer will become cooler, becoming less dense, but will not sink
because the water below it is denser ("tighter"). if the air is cold
enough, the water at the surface will become ice. This layer of ice
will protect the lake from the cold air and thus prevent it from
freezing solid (unless the winter is long and cold). By designing water
in this way, God made it possible for fish to survive winters under the
ice.
Is water necessary? Yes, it is life-giving. Without it, plants,
animals, and people would die. We can live quite a long time without
food, but without water, we would die in a matter of days. In Bible
lands the people knew how very important water was. They knew they
could not exist without it. Jesus, wanting them to understand how
important he was, said to them, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall
thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him
a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:13b-14.
Water is necessary for our physical life. Jesus is necessary for our
spiritual and eternal life. Have you taken a drink from the cup of
Jesus?
