Hands-on solar cooker project drives home scientific principles
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News from Mark Rochin
POLSON — The Polson Middle School eighth graders just finished their final unit on heat, light, and energy. The culminating project was to build a solar cooker at home and bring it in to test. Their goal was to get it the hottest they could get it using the principles they had learned. This year’s hottest temperature was 330F. Second place was 320F, and third 310F.
They learned all the principles as we went through in the heat, light, and energy unit with multiple activities, labs, videos, and discussions. I was very impressed with many of them, but more impressed how they could explain the science behind the cooker and how they could make it better next time. “Principles of the Solar Cooker” is an assignment students could do if they wanted to bring their grade up one grade after they were tested. We did a big heat and energy lab which was designed to allow them to see how the science works in all the working parts of the cooker.
One specific station had a descriptive event titled “Ice Blocks.” They needed to observe, using all their senses, the two similar looking black coasters. One felt much colder than the other. They then had to predict which one would melt the ice cube faster. Almost all said the warmer one would. The warmer one was made out of a composite wood and the other a metal, which felt much colder, but both looked similar. They put an ice cube on each and the colder-feeling metal one immediately began to melt the coaster. This reinforced the idea of Specific Heat. The “Ice Block” station explains Specific Heat Capacity, and showed them that most metals release energy at a much higher rate than cardboard or wood.
The cooker that reached 330F applied all the principles correctly, and they definitely used thermodynamics with the thermometer sitting on copper wire. We cooked up a cake in our commercial cooker the school owns - it reached a top temperature of 350F and can easily reach temperatures of 400F. Many students cooked cookies and hot dogs. It wasn’t a requirement for them to cook, but a plus for some hungry teenagers.
I hope this sparks their interest to continue into the much needed science and math fields of renewable energy. Nothing better than a solar cookie. One past student’s family used their cooker from two years ago last summer on their camping trip.
We also brought in the idea that so many third world countries are now using solar cookers because of the scarcity of wood and fuel. All you need is photons.
