Project Idea: Solar Cooking

Last class, I was assigned the role of team captain for our final projects. My team members and I, Angela Bray and Anna Valutkevich, threw out idea after idea before settling on a topic for the final project. This project requires us to come up with an experiment that can be demonstrated in front of the class involving some of the principles and theories we have learned about. In an extension of our learning about the power of solar energy, we finally came up with the idea of solar cooking. Solar cooking is a completely green way to make almost any meal. There are many ways to harvest the power of the sun for energy, and likewise, there are many different ways to cook food in solar cookers. They range from pricey, professionally made contraptions that utilize solar panels, to shoeboxes with tin foil. Our project will be made of the latter. For an example of what we’re hoping to make, here are some links to pages that show how to make your own solar cooker:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Educational/NCKidsSolarAct-1.pdf

http://www.ehow.com/how_4929421_make-fast-heating-solar-oven.html

This was actually an idea that I had never heard of before. However, it is a common method of cooking in  many parts of the world, and there are a number of different kinds of cookers for different purposes. Solar cooking is actually very common in many places and is used to cook a number of different foods, particularly vegetables, grains, and starches, but can also be used to cook meat, bread, and almost anything that could be cooked in a regular oven. Water can be boiled inside certain solar powered cookers, and milk can be pasteurized. The versatility of these cookers is countered by the fact that they are less convenient and take longer to cook than conventional methods. If the sun is hidden behind clouds, it is predictably harder to use a solar cooker, but not completely impossible. In fact, for many simple meals, a solar cooker can be used to one’s advantage – its very hard to overcook food in a box solar cooker like the one we intend to make. Since the temperature inside remains constant, it is nearly impossible to burn the food. Additionally, it requires no vigilance – unlike cooking on the stove or in the oven, you don’t need to keep checking your food, simply place it in the sunlight and cook.

For our experiment, we will demonstrate through an internal thermometer that the temperature in a solar cooker can be comparable to that of a traditional oven, and also demonstrate how different positions relative to the sun and different box setups with various light reflectors can affect cooking times and temperatures. We will also hopefully have enough for everyone to taste some solar food! The big question for us now is not what we should do for our project, but what to put on the menu?