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Cooking with the Sun | Junior Science
Without our blazing Sun, life on Earth would not have been possible. The Sun’s energy reaching our planet Earth is responsible for our warm climate, liquid waters, even our air. Humans have come up with genius and inventive ways to harness this renewable and free energy from the Sun.
Burning up with light!
Last week, our Junior Science kids crafted their very own solar oven using a simple pizza box! A solar oven or cooker is a device that uses direct sunlight to cook, without the use of any fuel and natural gas or coal. After learning about light and the reflective properties of colours, they applied their knowledge and modified their pizza box to absorb and transfer energy from the Sun to the food in the most efficient manner.
Designing in progress…
Painting the outside of the box black to absorb as much sunlight as possible!
And on the inside of the box, reflective aluminium foil was used to trap the heat
Watch out, we have two new pizza businesses in town!
The kids painted their boxes black on the outside to maximise the amount of sunlight absorbed since black absorbs all colours of light. In contrast, the kids lined the inner part of their oven with aluminium foil to reflect back as much heat and light back to the food. Check out their creative designs!
Out in the Sun we go!
Too bright to open my eyes, but perfect for my solar oven experiment!
Metals spoons heating up, too hot to touch!
Noting the increasing temperature readings in the solar oven
Melting in progress! Metal spoons were placed in the solar oven and were left in the sun for two minutes. The temperature in the box increased by a whopping 28°C, from 32°C to a peak temperature of 60°C. The spoons were too hot to grab for long! The kids ended off their experiments by placing an M&M to get delicious, drippy chocolate. Give it a try!