You can have lots of fun at a lake. Many
people take vacations along lakes. You can go swimming and jump off a raft. You
can go out on a boat. You can catch fish.
Some lakes are huge. They look as big as an
ocean. You cannot see across the largest lakes.
WHAT MAKES A LAKE A LAKE?
Big lakes and small lakes are like bowls in
the ground filled with water. Lakes are not part of the ocean. Lakes are called
inland bodies of water.
Most lakes are filled with fresh water, but a few
are filled with salty water. The Great Salt Lake in Utah is filled with water
that is much saltier than ocean water. The salt comes from streams flowing into
the Great Salt Lake. When water in this lake evaporates (turns into a gas), the
salt is left behind.
HOW DID LAKES FORM?
The bowls in the ground that lakes fill
sometimes formed because of sliding or moving rock and mud. Most lakes formed
because of huge fields of ice called glaciers. Glaciers carved out most lakes
when the ice moved. The ice ground up rock below. The ground-up rock froze in
the ice. The glacier carried the rock away. This left a bowl-like shape in the
ground. Rainwater filled up the bowl.
Glaciers carved out the five Great Lakes in North
America. The great lakes are huge. Big ships travel on the great lakes. Lake
Superior, one of the Great Lakes, is the biggest freshwater lake in the world.
There are many lakes in the far north, because
thousands of years ago there were many glaciers in the north. Almost half of
the lakes in the world are in Canada.
WHERE DOES LAKE WATER COME FROM?
Lake water comes from rain or snow. Sometimes the
rain or snow falls right into the lake. Sometimes the rain or snow makes rivers
or streams. Rivers and streams can flow into lakes.
How much water a lake holds changes all the
time. A lot of rain or snow can fill a lake up until it overflows. Too little
rain or snow can cause a lake to dry up.
