I had 5 different solar cookers done of different complexity levels with my family's help (including my 5 yr old applying glue)... A panel solar cooker, a parabolic solar cooker, a box cooker from a old box that I left to throw out, a hot dog cooker out of shoebox and a pizza cooker out of....yes, a pizza box. It was lot of fun making them and I tried most of them (The Sun is still not that regular and hot in Finland yet). I took all 5 of them for display to the schools.
After a 10 minute presentation basically giving them intro about Solar cookers and where they are used most widely today and the three main principles involved in it, I showed them the designs and encouraged them to create their own designs using the three principles. Since I gave the material list needed beforehand, the student groups came prepared. There were 30+ students from France visiting the Tampere IB school and ofcourse they were also invited to participate. The student groups started designing rightaway and it was awesome to see each group working on a different design just glancing at the traditional designs once in a while. I didn't get a chance to see the final designs but they do have time till next friday (April29) to finish and test their designs. We did make this into a friendly competition and pick the most creative solar cooker that works efficiently. I will try to post some pictures from yesterday and the final designs soon. I caught one group calculating the focal point for their solar cooker while another group were using industrial strength stapler on their cooker:) I saw some art work going into one of the solar cookers and definitely saw lot of discussions all through the project. It was truly a great example for team work in that room yesterday. They genuinely seemed to be enjoying the project and most definitely were thinking out of the box..
In the afternoon, I went and talked to the 6-7yr old children at the level they would understand. It was fun hearing their explanations about why black pot would be better to use than others, what does Sun give us etc. They all listened attentively when I told them they could build a hot dog cooker with just a little help from their teachers and then cook hotdogs when we have more Sun. One of the kids wanted to surprise the parents by building one and cook a hot dog for them:) There wasn't enough time for them to build them yesterday and I returned back home to Espoo.
Today I got the following note from the preschool teacher Liliana:
"So we made the solar cookers today. We made 3 normal box ones, one pizza one, one hot dog one... and then we got creative and we made a FRENCH FRIES one, with a plastic container plus opening on the top to add salt and oil... designed by the kids... and then we have an egg cooker as well. I hope you don't mind that we broke away from the norm... they understood the concept behind the solar cooker so they asked if they could create their own... I said why not?"
My response to her - Mission accomplished:) They had fun and learnt about Solar cooking and probably even more about energy and heat and the best part is, they now think Science if Fun not just theory and hardwork:)
The picture below shows the Tampere IB high school teacher Kaarina who is the main person behind the project. Their Chemistry teacher Johanna was also involved with the project from the beginning.
