Exciting Energy Activities: Marshmellow melt

Marshmallow Melt

Purpose:

To introduce students to solar power as a form of alternative energy that is renewable.

Objectives:

As a result of this activity, the student will:

1. Explore the use of solar energy as an alternative to electricity.

2. Draw conclusions about colors and their effect on solar energy collection.

3. Measure heat given off by solar energy.

Materials:

Parabolic Solar Collectors (4-5 students can use one simultaneously) - an old umbrella lined with silver mylar.

Kraft flavored marshmallows (These come in different colors and are important to the assessment of knowledge)

Uncooked spaghetti noodles (as thick as possible). These are used as skewers.

Stop watch

Large grid graph paper

Thermometer

TEKS:

5.1A,B 5.2A,B,C,D 5.3A 5.7A 5.8A,C

Procedure:

1. Make sure you have a clear, sunny day for this activity. It need not be a hot day but it must be sunny.

2. By mid-morning, place the cookers in an area where no shadows will be cast on them. This will allow the cookers to heat up prior to use.

3. Review and discuss the angle of reflection concept with students.

4. Explain the method of determining the hot spot on the cookers as follows:

Place your hand about six inches above the rim of the cooker. With your eyes closed, slowly rotate your hand around the perimeter of the cooker. After finding the hottest spot, slowly raise your hand until the heat becomes localized to a point. This is where you will want to hold your marshmallow.

5. Hold a thermometer in this spot until the temperature stabilizes. Record the measurement.

6. Have the children choose the marshmallows they would like to roast and allow them to skewer them using the spaghetti noodles.

7. As the marshmallows are cooking, listen to the children’s observations related to the various cooking time of the different colors. Allow plenty of time to discover why some get finished before others. (White will never roast. chocolate gets finished fastest, and the others vary based on how light the color is.)

8. Repeat the experiment. This time have students use a stop watch to time the roasting times of each individual color and record the results.

9. Back in the classroom, have the students create a bar graph of the roasting times of the different color of marshmallows. (I suggest that you have them create the graph from the lightest colored marshmallow to the darkest one to make the information easier to interpret.)

10. Discuss data and draw conclusions about the difference in roasting times related to the color of the marshmallows.

Questions:

1. Which marshmallow roasted to the fastest? the slowest?

2. Why do you think the darker colors roasted faster than the lighter colored marshmallows?

3. If you were going to build a solar collector of your own, what color would you want it to be? Why?

Extension:

At this point the children could design different types of collectors that will hold water. These are placed outside in the sun and tested at 15-minute intervals to determine which heat the fastest.

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