"Smoke! There's SMOKE!!"

"Smoke! There's SMOKE!!"

Not the words you want to hear in a school situation.

Unless your students have designed solar ovens and are cooking marshmallows for s'mores in them!

The jubilant cry triggered an excited celebration AFTER I made sure they had not set their oven (made from cardboard) on fire and that what was smoking was truly the marshmallows.

And it was.

One group had focused the sun well enough in their oven to burn a hole right into their marshmallows!

 As part of our Heat unit, they designed their ovens using principles they'd learned of heat transfer (conduction, convection, and radiation) and how insulators can prevent that from occurring.

 I do this every other year as part of my STEM curriculum, but this is the first year that a marshmallow has actually cooked - and that team cooked several successfully in their oven! Usually the combination of the heat of the day and being in direct sunlight is enough to at least soften the marshmallows and the kids are happy with that.

 But a gooey, sun-cooked s'more fixed in an oven that you designed yourself is the best of the best. WS was lead engineer of the team that built the successful oven, and so he got to eat the first one. (Although he told me he felt someone else should have the first one, not him. Not really a surprise; that's the kind of guy WS is.)

 TM enjoys her s'more while her team checks the other marshmallows in their oven.

Our buddy class came out to watch us cook. Since solar cooking takes a long time,  we also played together on the playground.

 TM plays with her buddy SM who is also her sister. What a look on SM's face as she hangs face to face with TM! AM and PC watch their fun.

Head engineer WS chases IC around the circle in a game of Duck, Duck, Goose. I love WS's exaggerated "run" as he chases IC.

AM is a very patient young man, and his buddy, PC, requires a LOT of that patience. Here PC is pulling him around the playground. AM did all that PC asked and never once complained. Behind them, TC and my student, KR, are pretending they're monsters and stomping around the playground together.

S'mores, happy kids, a sunny afternoon of STEM learning... It doesn't get much better than that!