Now You're Cooking: Designing Solar Ovens In Stock Now

[GRADES 3-5] This unit guides students to explore energy, and how heat energy from the Sun can be harnessed by a solar cooker to heat food. Many students might take technologies such as stoves, ovens, and toasters for granted, but these conveniences aren’t available to Lerato, a girl who lives in Botswana. Through the storybook Lerato Cook Up a Plan, students will be introduced to Lerato and her family. Lerato and her siblings have to gather firewood in order to build a cooking fire to heat their food. When Tsoane, another villager, returns from University, Lerato learns about the field of green engineering. Green engineers are concerned with designing technologies that have as little impact on the environment as possible. Tsoane shows Lerato how she could use a well insulated solar cooker to help cook food, eliminating the chore of gathering firewood and the environmental impacts of creating cooking fires. Key concepts introduced in the storybook include life cycle assessments of engi

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