How to Make a Solar Oven

'How to make a solar oven?', and 'Why?' We live in a society that uses fossil fuel to accomplish many of its functions. Transportation of goods, materials and men, most of the time, is accomplished with the help of vehicles using some form of fossil fuel. The gas we use in the house to cook food is also a type fossil fuel. What happens when all the fuel oil on the earth gets exhausted. How we are going to cook our food? Are we going to eat it raw? Scientists are exploring alternative energy sources such as wind energy, tidal wave energy, solar energy, etc., to fulfill our future energy needs. In fact, you can also check if these energy sources of any use by making small scale models of a windmill or a solar oven. The following paragraph gives information on how to make a solar oven out of a box, which I am sure kids will love to do.

How to Make a Solar Oven for Kids

It is easy for kids to make a solar oven and understand how solar power can be used to accomplish our purposes such as cooking. Solar ovens work by absorbing and retaining the energy of the sun. If we put something inside them then that object absorbs this energy. If it is a raw food material, then it gets cooked just as if it is cooked using cooking gas. To start this project one needs two cardboard boxes. Their dimensions must differ by at least 5 inches. Follow the tips given below to build something which you can also use to participate in a solar oven science fair.

• Open the big box and keep the top aside and line its bottom with crumpled waste paper. You can also use newspaper to serve the purpose. The reason for this will be given later on. Let us, first, make the oven ready.
• Let's prepare the smaller one by lining its inner sides with aluminum foil. You can do so by sticking it to the sides or by using a stapler to fix it to the sides of this box. Make sure that you leave the inside bottom of the box free of the aluminum foil.
• Stick a black cardboard to the inside bottom of the small box.
• Place the smaller one in the center of the big box and fill in the space between the sides of the two boxes with the crumpled waste paper.
• Take a thick cardboard paper which can easily cover the large box easily. Stick or staple aluminum foil to it so that it can be used as a reflector.
• Staple or glue this homemade reflector to the large box such that it will reflect the sunlight on to the interior of the box. The reflected sunlight should cover the smaller box completely.
• The smaller box works as a container for the food to cook. Let us demonstrate the use of this solar oven. Select the food to cook and place it in the smaller box.
• Place the solar oven on the terrace or in an open place where it will get unobstructed sunlight. Adjust the reflector as discussed before. Support it with a thin stick if it is flapping to and away from the box, or if it is not holding the angle with the sun.
• Cover the whole structure with a sheet of clear plastic or glass, if you can handle that without breaking it.
• The food will take some time to cook depending on its type, so leave it alone.
• Find something else to do and don't forget to keep an eye on your new oven from time to time. If you don't have two boxes then it is possible to make a solar oven out of a shoe box, although the instructions for it will differ to some extent from those presented above. You can search for such instructions on the Internet.

The crumpled paper that you used according to instructions in 'how to make a solar oven', increases the surface area inside the big box and it also creates numerous tiny air pockets inside the box. When the sunlight falls on the solar oven it gets warm and the heat is absorbed by the air pockets. The hot air moves upward in side the big box and comes in contact with the small box. The black surfaces attract more heat and as the food material is in contact with the bottom of the small box, it gets heated and eventually cooked. Of course a solar oven takes more than twice the time as compared to conventional means to cook food. However, the renewable energy it uses is free and even if all the fossil fuel such as cooking gas gets exhausted, your solar oven will ensure that you go to sleep with warm and cooked food inside you.