Project

Solar Cooking chat with Tor & Luther [Su24]

It’s not every day that a solar cooker enthusiast wants to visit and chat. Luther Krueger is actually a super enthusiast and has developed a museum for solar cookers in Minnesota. He visits other solar chefs and entrepreneurs around the country interviewing and posting chats about solar cooker design, and solar cooking experiences on his YouTube channel (Big Blue Sun Museum of Solar Cooking). Luther visited us in the summer of 2024.

I personally think of solar cooking as one of the two big ‘WoW’ moments when harvesting sunshine – that you can actually get it hot enough in a box to cook! The other big wow, or magical solar trick, is photovoltaics which convert sunshine into electricity. But this story is about solar cookers and cooking. I share my own experience that goes back to the early 1990s. Click on the image above to view the video. It’s almost like a podcast, except with pictures.

For some simple to build solar cookers for your class, check out our pizza box and shoe box cookers on this page, along with some tips for success.

Project

Solar Schoolhouse Program Lets the Sun Shine In through Outdoor Education [July 2024]

Thanks to a grant from All Points North Foundation, Solar Schoolhouse materials and training are now available to California Outdoor Education Schools at no cost for the 2024-25 school year.  The year-long program will run from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025.

Solar Schoolhouse, a program of The Rahus Institute, has worked with the Outdoor Education community since 2003. We’re updating and re-energizing solar energy lessons specifically for the outdoor education setting this summer, ready to use for the Fall season.  Additionally, an Outdoor Education Teaching Solar Guide will be developed for naturalists to use going forward.

Included in this year’s program will be new narratives exploring human history of using the sun’s energy to heat, cool, and power our homes for 1000s of years and using nature-inspired design (biomimicry) to lead low environmental impact lives. The new narratives help clarify the role of solar energy in the outdoor education setting.  We’ll also provide several interactive and fun teaching tools for each participating outdoor education site, while supplies last.  We are now looking for outdoor ed school sites to partner with us to pilot these refreshed activities.

As part of this program, we will provide several FREE  interactive and fun teaching tools along with training for each participating outdoor education site. This includes: Solar Cell Classroom Set, Solar Fountain Sculpture Sets, Solar Spinart sets, Solar Journals, and more. 

To learn more and register this summer (2024) for Fall training and materials visit us at
solarschoolhouse.org/sshoe

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