An Interview with H2O

AN INTERVIEW WITH H2O

 

Recently Zoe and Water, stars of the book Hey, Water! by Antoinette Portis, sat down together to talk.

Zoe: I’ve heard your formal name is H-two-oh. Is that some kind of code?

Water: H2O is my scientific name. It tells you which elements (the building blocks of matter on earth) I’m made of: two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen.

 

Zoe: Hey, Water, I really had to chase you down, since you can take different forms!

Water: I did enjoy our game of hide and seek. You discovered that I could be a liquid, a gas, or a solid, depending on the temperature.

If I get chilled to 32 degrees F (or 0 degrees C) or lower, I freeze into a solid, like an ice cube, or a snowflake.

Here I am being liquid and solid at the same time:

Look at that—I can float in myself!

 

Zoe: Hey, there’s nothing in the gas square picture! Where are you?

Water: That’s me being sneaky! I am invisible in gas form. When the weather gets really hot, like in summer, I evaporate into gas. I still exist, but you can’t see me. How amazing is that? I float way up in the air and wait for the air to cool down so I can turn back into water and rain down on you all. (I really do enjoy being rain.)

Water: Zoe, it’s my turn to ask you a question.

How is planet earth like a baby?

Zoe: I give up.

Water: Because they’re both almost ¾ me, H2O! (The oceans are big expanses of water on the planet’s surface, but the water inside of people is in tiny little packets called cells.)

 

Zoe: Is there anything you want to tell the people of earth?

Water: All living things need unpolluted water to stay alive. But humans dump trash, sewage, and waste from factories into rivers and oceans. All the bad chemicals you throw into me hurt living things, including yourselves! I suggest you be more careful.

Many thanks to Zoe, Water, Antoinette and the team at Scallywag for taking part in NNFN2023!