With summer coming up fast, one cool kid (and adult) project is to build a solar cooker. Building your own solar cooker is not even too tough – it’s only harder if you go with a more complex design.
Best of all solar cookers are very easy to use once built. By easy, I mean that even five year old kids can use a solar cooker with adult supervision. When my son was attending an eco-charter his class built a nice little solar cooker then used said cooker to cook their own tortillas and other flat breads on it every week. The food always turned out nicely and the kids loved it.
Benefits of solar cooking:
- Solar cookers use a completely renewable energy source – the sun, so zero energy drains from conventional power.
- Low cost to build and practically free to use depending on small repairs. Of course the energy you’ll use is 100% free, well, until the sun starts charging us $.
- Studies have shown that two solar cooked meal a week can save massive energy over time. That includes more energy saved then if you cook with wood.
- Solar cooking produces no smoke and thus no harmful carcinogens that invades your food or body.
- It’s portable cooking ease – it’s hard to take your kitchen stove camping but a solar cooker will fit nicely in a car.
- It’s fun and educational. Plus, trust me there’s nothing cuter than kids slapping tortillas on a solar cooker then getting all excited when they’re done.
Make your own solar cooker:
The key is to find a good book or tutorial with visuals. Solar cookers are, like most projects, easier to manage with decent visuals.
- The Bernard Solar Panel Cooker
- Make a pizza box solar cooker
- Easy Zoom solar cooker
- Build your own solar cooker
- Amazing solar cooker’s compared page
- Solar oven for kids science experiment
Solar cooker recipes:
- Massive amount of solar cooker recipes
- Slow cooker recipes
- Awesome collection of recipes
If you want to make the experience more education check out this teachers resource for solar cookers. Has your family used a solar cooker? What do you think of the experience?
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We did some solar oven making ourselves last summer. Kids LOVED it! Definitely worth doing from any angles. We also love the Sun Oven solar oven. Yes, it’s expensive, but think of all the electricity/gas you’ll save to say nothing of air conditioning. We think it can be worth it. This baby cooks even without direct sun.
STUPID PIZZA BOX! I DONT HAVE A PIZZA BOX AND I NEED TO MAKE A CONCAVE SOLAR OVE!!!!!!!!
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