Provide at least 3 properties that make water essential for life.

Answer 1

1. Water is a universal solvent and can dissolve a variety of compounds. This helps facilitate various chemical reactions throughout the cell by allowing compounds to move freely in solution and interact with one another.
2. Water is cohesive. This is a property that causes water molecules to “stick” to one another. One important example of this is in plants. In general, plants will use cohesion to draw up a long chain of water molecules from their roots to other parts of the plant which goes against the pull of gravity
3. Ice is less dense than liquid water. This causes ice to float on top of water, insulating the lower liquid layers and preventing the oceans from freezing entirely.