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be hot enough to kill any bacteria which is in the food.

This is a good vegan recipe which should work well in any solar oven, as well as in a conventional oven:

Vegan Peanut Butter Oatmeal Banana Cookies

1/3 cup peanut butter
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp soy milk
2 tbsp maple syrup or corn syrup (optional)
2 cups rolled oatmeal
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup whole wheat flour

Have your child help you assemble this recipe. First mash the bananas, then add the peanut butter, soy milk, vanilla and syrup. Add the oats, flour and cinnamon.

Then spoon the result on two separate ungreased cookie sheets. Make sure that one of the sheets will fit inside your solar oven.

Bake one sheet in the conventional oven for 13 to 16 minutes. Bake the other cookie sheet in the solar oven until they appear to be done.

We did this recipe in fall, when the sun was beginning to wane so we had some trouble getting the oven to really heat up. However, we did get the solar oven cookies to solidify sufficiently. When they were done, we took digital photographs of the cookies and the oven, and also took some pictures during the cooking process. I instructed my son to make a note of how long it took for each batch of cookies to finish cooking, and the final result of each. Whereas the cookies in the conventional oven had taken about twelve minutes to finish cooking, the solar oven cookies took around two hours. We compared the texture and taste of the two batches of cookies, and my son recorded these results in his project log.

The second time we baked the cookies, it was a hot day in August. We didn't get the cookies in until rather late in the day, but we still had better results than in our fall-time cooking attempt. It was a little windy, and the lid kept blowing off, so I had to get a couple rocks to keep it on. Fortunately my husband collects these, so I had some handy. Other strategies, such as turning the oven to face the sun and setting the pan toward the back of the oven where there was more direct sunlight also helped.

set the timer for 30 minutes but somehow missed the buzzer. When we went out, the pan was so hot we needed oven mits to get it. The cookies cooled much more quickly than if they had been in a conventional oven. The cookies were delicious, warm, chewy and not too sweet. My boys and I ate them almost faster than we could cook them.

We created a large posterboard with these observations and project results. I had to do a lot of the work myself, but encouraged my son to do as much as possible. I permitted him to take the camera and, with supervision, take the pictures of the oven himself, and to incorporate printouts of these pictures into his posterboard.

My child's teacher made a point to mention how much everyone loved the solar oven science fair project. Overall, it was a huge success. This project can be done in a couple of days, but it is a lot easier if you leave a couple of weeks to complete it. This is a very well-rounded school science project that is highly interesting and stimulating not only for you and your child, but is also a huge crowd pleaser at science fairs.

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Claerr.
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