Cumulus clouds are large, puffy, mid-altitude clouds with a flat base and a rounded top. These clouds grow upward and can develop into a cumulonimbus or thunderstorm cloud.

In the mesosphere, temperature again drops as altitude increases until the coldest point in the Earth's atmosphere, the mesopause, is reached where temperatures fall to −225 °F (−143 °C).

Rising into the atmosphere, the water condenses into clouds. When the clouds become too saturated with water, the water is released as snow or ice precipitation which may warm as it falls to reach Earth as rain.

A population is a group of organisms of the same species who live in the same area at the same time. A community is a group of populations living and interacting with each other in an area.

The Earth's rocks fall into three categories based on how they're formed. Igneous rock (granite, basalt, obsidian) is formed from the hardening of molten rock (lava), sedimentary rock (shale, sandstone, coal) is formed by the gradual despositing and cementing of rock and other debris, and metamorphic rock (marble, slate, quartzite) which is formed when existing rock is altered though pressure, temperature, or chemical processes.