Maria Telkes and the Solar Oven
Characters:
Theme: Grounded Development of Hypotheses on the Environment and Sustainability Based on the Differences Between Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy Sources
Competencies
Mathematical competence in science, technology and engineering
Digital Competence
Personal, social and learning to learn competence
Subjects and year by Educational System
Spain > Physics and chemistry > 2nd ESO > Energy
Enunciation
1- Let's build a solar oven to warm up our lunch and see how solar energy can be used. This was a brilliant idea from the Hungarian scientist Mária Telkes, who worked in the United States during the 20th century and specialized in developing solar energy, which is especially important in these times of energy adaptation due to climate change. She was known for developing a portable seawater desalination unit and a portable solar-powered oven
Tomorrow, bring a cheese sandwich or a chocolate bar, so we can use the solar oven to warm it up.
Look up information on how to make a homemade solar oven. To build it, you'll only need a few materials that you probably already have in your kitchen and a used pizza box. With these elements, you'll create an eco-friendly tool to heat your food or make easy dishes like melted chocolate desserts or warm sandwiches.
Materials:
- Large pizza box
- Pencil or pen
- Ruler
- Box cutter
- Adhesive tape
- 1 black cardboard sheet
- Aluminum foil
- Plastic wrap or an acrylic sheet
- 1 wooden skewer or pencil
Procedure:
- Clean the pizza box: Make sure to remove all food residues inside the box. It’s important that the box is intact without any tears or breaks.
- Draw a square: On the top lid of the box, draw a large square, leaving at least 2.5 cm (1 inch) of space from each edge.
- Cut the square: Using the box cutter, cut along the two sides and the bottom of the square you’ve drawn. Leave one side uncut so that it functions as a hinge to open and close the flap.
- Cover the flap with aluminium foil: Line the inside of the flap with aluminium foil, ensuring it is smooth and secured with tape to avoid movement.
- Add plastic wrap to the opening: Open the flap and cover the open section of the box with plastic wrap. Make sure the plastic film completely seals the opening and is tightly secured.
- Line the box interior with aluminium foil: Cover the entire inside of the pizza box with aluminium foil and secure it with adhesive tape.
- Place the black cardboard: Attach a sheet of black cardboard to the bottom of the box, ensuring it is centred. This will act as the heat absorber in your solar oven.
- Secure the flap: Insert a wooden skewer, pencil, or similar object on one side to prop the flap open. Use tape to secure it at a 90-degree angle to allow sunlight to reflect onto the black cardboard.
Here’s a 3-minute video from Little Scientist #6: Homemade Solar Oven with instructions for building the solar oven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFwXPkI5OtU
It’s Cooking Time!
For example, you can make a cheese or chocolate sandwich – they turn out delicious!
To melt it, place the sandwich on a piece of aluminum foil, which will act as a tray on top of the black cardboard. Place the solar oven in a spot where it receives direct sunlight and let it do its work until the cheese is melted. Be careful when opening the solar oven, as it can reach high temperatures inside.While we enjoy the food we’ve heated, let’s talk about the process that allowed our food to get warm.
Observations and context
Mária Telkes was preceded by the 17th, 18th, and 19th-century scientists: Katherine Boyle, Lady Ranelagh (1615–1691) in England; chemist Marie Anne Paulze (1758–1836), known as Mme. Lavoisier in France; Italian Lucia Galeazzi Galvani (1743–1788); and Russian Julia Lermontova (1847–1919), a pioneer of the periodic table. She was also part of the lineage of scientists originating with Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867–1934), co-discoverer of radioactivity, Polonium, and Radium, and recipient of two Nobel Prizes: Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911.
Some contemporaries were the French scientists: Irene Joliot-Curie (1897–1956), who, along with her husband, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for discovering induced radioactivity and artificial radioactivity; Marguerite Perey (1909–1975), assistant and close collaborator of Marie Curie, who discovered Francium while purifying lanthanum samples containing actinium; Samira Musa (1917–1952), an Egyptian scientist who worked to make the medical use of nuclear technology affordable for everyone; Ida Noddack (1896–1978), a German chemical engineer who co-discovered Rhenium in 1925 and was the first to propose the idea of nuclear fission; Lise Meitner (1878–1968), an Austrian physicist who co-discovered Protactinium and nuclear fission; the German Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906–1972), winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on the nuclear shell model; Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997), a Chinese-born American physicist who experimentally demonstrated the hypothesis of parity violation in weak nuclear interactions; Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958), a British chemist and crystallographer whose work was fundamental to understanding the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite; English engineer, mathematician, and physicist Hertha Ayrton (1854–1923), a close friend of Marie Curie; nuclear chemist Marietta Blau (1894–1970); mathematicians Emmy Noether (1882–1935) and Hilda Geiringer (1893–1973); and electrical engineer Edith Clarke (1883–1959), author of Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems, a reference textbook in energy engineering.
Among the current scientists is the Egyptian researcher Shaimaa Omran. She aims to develop an evaluation strategy for photovoltaic solar penetration in distribution networks using evolutionary artificial intelligence algorithms, among other mechanisms. She also works on advancing the application of renewable energies, an idea inspired by Mária Telkes.
Description
Creating a Solar Oven with a Pizza Box
This activity develops the following specific competencies: CE1, CE2, CE4, and CE6.