Curated OER
Harnessing Solar Energy
Students discover the properties of light (radiant) energy from the sun by experimenting with solar collectors, cookers, and calculators. After a lecture/demo, students create their own solar collectors and test their efficiency.
Captain Planet Foundation
Solar Cooking Race
Study heat transfer with activities that focus on how heat energy works. Using a solar cooker, ice cubes, and heat transfer bracelets, kids experiment and record what they find by keeping ice cubes cold and vegetables hot.
Curated OER
Cooking With Solar
Identify how solar energy generates thermal energy by constructing solar cookers with your students. They will evaluate the factors that affect efficiency and the lesson can be adapted to capture data in a variety of ways.
Curated OER
Cooking with the Sun
Students explore using energy from the sun for heating and cooking as they build and compare the performance of four solar cooker designs. This excellent two-day lesson has groups of students build and test a variety of solar cookers....
Curated OER
Solar Box Cooker
Students explore solar power. In this solar power lesson, students build simple solar cookers after they study convection, conduction, and radiation. Students transfer their knowledge of how the solar cooker works to climate changes on...
Curated OER
Solar Cooking
Students experiment with a virtual solar cooker to discover the mathematical relationship among reflection, transmission and absorption. Then they actually build and test a solar cooker of their own invention.
Curated OER
Solar Hot Dog Cooker
Young scholars create a solar hot dog cooker. In this solar energy lesson, students use various materials such as tin foil and cardboard to build a hot dog cooker. Young scholars cook their own hot dogs.
Curated OER
Solar Hot Box or Cooker
Students brainstorm about solar energy then construct a solar cooker to test the maximum temperature that materials can reach. In this solar energy lesson, students experiment and record temperature of water in their hot boxes while...
Curated OER
Cooking with the Sun!
Students access prior knowledge of solar energy and understand that solar energy produces heat. In this solar cooker lesson, students complete grade appropriate experiments using the heat of the sun. Students complete a worksheet on...
Curated OER
Let the Sun Shine!
Young scholars investigate how the sun can be used for energy. They read a handout, discuss the pros and cons of passive solar building design, develop flashcard questions, and identify jobs that can be helped by solar energy.
Curated OER
Solar Cooker Challenge
Young scholars use the scientific method to design a slow cooker. In this experimental method lesson students measure temperatures and conversions of the solar cooker that they create.
Curated OER
Harnessing Solar Energy
Learners identify the properties of light from the sun. In groups, they participate in experiments with solar collectors, cookers and calculators to determine which one harnesses the most energy. They record their observations and...
Curated OER
Solar Cooking
Students experiment with a virtual solar cooker to discover the relationship between reflection, transmission, and absorption. In this solar cooking instructional activity students apply what they learn to construct their own solar...
Curated OER
Power Play
Once your physical science stars have a grasp of the different forms of energy, use this resource to get them putting the energy to work. Small groups choose from seven different project options and work together to build an energy...
Curated OER
If You Can’t Stand the Heat
Students design and build their own solar cooker. In this math lesson, students determine the relationship between the angles of the sun, reflection and cooking time of the solar cooker. They test their project, collect data and analyze...
Curated OER
Reflective Solar Cooker
Students build and use a reflective solar cooker to cook marshmallows.
Curated OER
It's Hot
Third graders examine the effect of sunlight on the earth. Individually, they pick an article of clothing out of a bag and sort themselves based on the color of the shirt and whether it should be worn on a cold or a hot day. To end the...
Curated OER
Solar Energy: Become a Sun Chef!
Young scholars design and construct a solar cooker. They use the Internet to research solar collectors and the process of changing light energy into heat energy.
Curated OER
Solar Cooking
Students create brochures focusing on one area of climate change that interests them. This lesson ends with a creative project building Earth Day solar cookers and having a class cookout.
Curated OER
Make a Sundial
Students explore space science by conducting a sun experiment in class. In this time telling instructional activity, students discuss how the sun sits in our sky at exact times each day and how astronomy is based on our perspective of...