STUDENT BOOKLET

YEAR 6
People in developing countries are struggling to meet the demands of collecting fire wood to
cook, due to deforestation. What are the alternatives to firewood to cook? One possibility is
energy from the sun, which we call SOLAR ENERGY. The sun gives us light and heat.
Our world is using natural resources and will soon have limited resources to heat our food.
Your group challenge is to design and test a solar cooker to heat two marshmallows.

Challenge rules:
1. In 10 minutes, the temperature inside the box must increase by 15 degrees.
2. You may use any available materials.
3. Your food may not touch the bottom of the oven directly.
4. You must design a way to best cook 2 marshmallows off of the bottom surface
5. You must cook the two marshmallows at two different heights. You will test which
height allows food to cook at a faster rate.
Before you begin the challenge test your knowledge:

Below is a graph showing data that demonstrates the efficiency of three different solar oven designs:
(1) plain box, (2) box with a black bottom and (3) a box with aluminum foil and a black bottom.

Which line (blue, orange or green) do you think represents the solar oven that is just an
empty box?
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Which of line do you think represents the solar oven with aluminium foil and a black bottom?
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What purpose do you think aluminium foil might serve?
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Team design

List the materials will you use to build the solar cooker?
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How will you meet the design constraint of the food not being allowed to touch the bottom
surface of the solar oven?
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Predict how the height of your food from the bottom surface will affect how quickly it is
cooked.
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What is your engineering process? (What steps will you take to build your design)
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Draw a picture of your solar cooker design and label the elements.

Test your design

After the test of your design:

Yes No
Did the solar oven increase in temperature by more
than 15oC?
Did both marshmallows melt?

Which height position worked best in this solar oven and why?
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List the specific strengths and weaknesses of the designs.
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Draw a diagram of how light energy was transformed to heat energy in your solar design
What is one benefit of solar energy?
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What is one limitation of solar energy?
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How did your team decide what your solar oven would look like?
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Did you change your solar oven after designing? After building? If so, what revisions did
your team make?
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How does your design help to contribute to meeting future needs of our world?
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How well does the designed solution meet the needs of communities and different cultures?
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What modifications might need to occur for these communities to use your design?
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*Questions altered from NASA, 2018b