Heat it up with your Solar Cooker!
A solar cooker is a cooking device which uses the energy of direct sunlight to heat, cook or pasteurize food or water. The solar cooker presented here is a low-tech device and relatively inexpensive for a usage at household level. Advanced, large-scale solar cookers can cook for hundreds of people. Because they use no fuel and have no operating costs, their use worldwide is promoted in order to help reduce fuel costs and air pollution, as well as to slow down the deforestation and desertification caused by gathering firewood for cooking. There are many different ways to build a solar cooker, one is presented here. The internet (YouTube) is a rich source for visualized instructions on how to build your own low-cost DIY solar cooker.
Objective
Enable students to understand the power of renewable energy sources and their potential use in daily life as replacement of non-renewables, as well as the money/work saving effect solar generated power.
Materials
Cardboard Box, black Paper, glue, thermocol (approximately 2.5 cm thick and 1 cm thick), aluminium foil, glass plate (or transparency film), masking tape, scissors, additional piece of flat cardboard twice the length of the box in one dimension and the same width as the box in the other dimension, a small length of stiff wire, a dish to test the cooker with (e.g. egg)
