MY PIZZA BOX SOLAR OVENAND MRI (MARSHMALLOW ROASTING INVESTIGATION)

By: Larissa M.

Key: Red letters = III (Important Investigation Information)

This is the page where I was going to explain how I made my pizza box oven, but I made it using the

instructions given to me on the website that was in the summer packet (

http://www.alliantenergykids.com/wcm/groups/wcm_internet/@int/@aekids/documents/contentpage/022819.pdf

). Since everyone else showed how they did it, I figured I’d skip that part and get to the point.

End of story, lecture, disclaimer, etc.

The Oven and the Experiment

My hypothesis is that darker foods cook faster than lighter foods. This is because I know that black paper absorbs more light than white, and thus gets hotter. So let’s see if I’m right.

Notice two marshmallows are white. Those are the controls. One is brown. The brown one is covered in cocoa powder. It’s the experiment. Let’s see which marshmallow cooks faster.

Touch Test

After about half an hour, the control marshmallows felt hot and squishy. The brown (experimental) marshmallow felt almost like liquid. Almost, but not quite. That’s one piece of evidence that darker foods cook quicker than lighter foods. We need some more evidence!

Temperature!The temperature is hovering around 150° F.

Gooey Marshmallow!As you can see, the inside of this marshmallow is [properly]

gooey. Let’s see how it tastes…

The Brown MarshmallowMMM! Yummy. This is the brown marshmallow. Note how

much it stretches.

The White Marshmallow

This is the control marshmallow. It doesn’t stretch as much as the brown one. That’s the other piece of evidence. Is it all in a jumble in your head? It’ll all come together in a minute.

My Conclusion

I’ll lay it out plain and simple: I was right. The first piece of evidence was that the brown

marshmallow felt more cooked than the white marshmallows after having spent the same amount of time in the solar oven in direct sunlight.

The second piece of evidence was that my taste test found that along with the cocoa-covered marshmallow tasting better, it was gooier, too.

Because the cocoa-covered marshmallow had darker coloration, it absorbed more light and heat, allowing it to cook faster than the white marshmallows in the same amount of time, because the white marshmallows reflect more light and heat than the cocoa-covered marshmallow.

Well, it looks like my investigation is complete, and I learned a lot, so I guess I’d better go run along to

my next marshmallow…