Classroom Solar Cooking project

[WriterofWords]

We are doing solar cooking since it's the end of the year, it's hot, the kids are bored and I love to teach it! We made the cake in a cup in a pan instead and it came out great. Next Wednesday we are having an entire 6th grade cook off! We are building everything from recycled boxes, used aluminum foil from the kitchen, construction paper from the class but new tape to hold it all together. Here is today's work:
(Signed permission slips to post photos)
Using technology to look up plans:

Building a cooker:

Cooking a cake:

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think it is a great project. Have fun with it.

We have cooked things like meat loaf, corn bread, and zucchini bread in ours, but I think it really shines in cooking vegetables, every thing from sweet potatoes to squash to beans. Something about that long slow cooking. And it helps keep the kitchen cooler in the summer. One thing I noticed. It is important to keep them level when cooking. The liquid stays in better that way and makes less of a mess and the breads and such come out more uniform.

 

[WriterofWords]

I do a lot of solar cooking, at home, camping, traveling, in the windshield of my truck,,, lol I love it!! The kids are having a blast too.

 

[scootermom]

you can also cook food in your car's engine compartment while you drive. Make up a "hobo pack" with a meat patty, some cut up vegetables, etc. and stick it on you manifold somewhere it won't slide off. I saw someone pull a burrito out of and engine once, and that's how I found out about it...a real Drive thru meal!

 

[WriterofWords]

I used to do that in the Winter when I drove a wrecker,,, the guys at the Ford shop thought I was nuts!

 

[scootermom]

I also meant to mention that I love solar cooking, my dad made me a cooker that got up to 275 degrees. My kids and I made cookies and I would also put dry beans out in the morning and they would be done by dinner. I left it in the rain too many times tho, and now I must rebuild it. I think that would be a great cheap way to cook in lots of places that don't have fuel for cooking, but plenty of sun, like Africa. I hope a group of people smarter than me is working on that!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
People are working on it. My wife asked me to make her one. I did a bit of research and asked "How big do you want it?" "I don't know." "What pot are you going to use in it?" (thinking I could meaure) "I don't know." In left it a couple of days and then she said she had ordered one. Expensive but at least it will fit the two pots she got with it. For every one sold, they supposedly send one to Africa. I sure hope so at that price.

http://www.solarovens.org/buy.html

 

[WriterofWords]

There is a pattern on one of our sites,, I have to find it, to actually build a solar cooker into your wall, using the sun outside but accessing it from inside the home.