Middle schoolers in Mark Rochin’s Integrated Science class at Polson Middle School were assigned a solar cooker project, a culminating activity for the heat, energy, and light unit the kids had been studying.

Rochin assigned the project on April 21, and their cookers were due the first week of June so the students had lots of time to make their cookers. With deforestation becoming a global problem, solar cookers are becoming a way to help save trees.

“You can make a solar cooker for pennies,” Rochin said, “so it wasn’t expensive for kids. You could even make it with cardboard.”

Concepts, such as heat or thermal energy, reflection, absorption and convection, were important in this mind-stretching project. Kids were given two black discs – one wooden and one metal – to help them decide what to put on the bottom of their cookers.

Students relied on each other, their science classwork and YouTube and other internet sources to help concoct cookers. Just Google “how to make a solar cooker,” and many sites pop up.

When students unveiled their cookers, 280 degrees and up earned an “A,” with the teacher supplying thermometers. The first-period class put the cookers outside and later classes went out to the “cooking ground” to make sure they were still in the sun.

The top cookers reached 330 degrees and were made by Autumn Spencer and Clarie Matine Benson. Some of the cookers reached 310-320 degrees, and others were in the 200-degree range.

Rochin said the main trouble was transferring ideas and principles into practice, but it was a fun, hands-on activity to get minds working.