As a
class we viewed a PowerPoint presentation about energy. We learned that energy
is the ability to do work. Not all energy can be used again, in fact there are
two types of energy; renewable energy and non-renewable energy. Renewable
energy is a source of power that will always be usable or reusable, some
sources of renewable energy include nuclear power plants, wind turbines and the
sun. Non-renewable energy is the opposite, you can never use this type of
energy again, fossil fuels and coal are both non-renewable sources of energy.
Solar energy from the sun was an important focal point of the presentation. We
would never know if the sun would run out of energy because we would die
if that happened. Once everyone in the class felt like experts on heat energy,
it was time to build our solar ovens.
Now
that we were ready, Ms.Powell let us plan our design for our solar ovens with
our partners. Once we both felt like we had a strong plan we started building.
Many groups had to improvise and change the plan along the way. Once everybody
in the class was done with their solar oven, Ms.Powell led the class outside to
the parking lot to test the solar ovens. Each kid received a graham cracker, a
piece of chocolate and a marshmallow. Using LabQuests and temperature probes,
we recorded how hot the ovens were every 5 minutes. Some group's ovens reached
up to almost 40 degrees Celsius. Most kids s'mores didn't change much, except
for the occasional melted chocolate. Most of our class wanted to make a new
oven and try again.
Luckily the next day, we
were granted the chance to modify and improve our solar ovens. Each team was given
100 new credits to spend; we were not allowed to reuse leftover credits, but we
could use our old oven. some partners entirely rebuilt theirs while others only
built on to their old oven. It was time to retest our ovens, we used the exact
same procedure to measure the temperature. This time mostly everyone chocolate
melted making the s'mores even more delicious. Some groups almost had
temperatures at 50 degrees Celsius. Our first engineering challenge was a blast
and the class still had to do data analysis. The whole class are now experts on
heat energy and have had solar oven s'mores.
