hcho15.html

	A friend of mine lives in a house with big tiles on the roof. When sunlight hits the tiles it's changed into electricity. Presto! Solar energy!	The cool thing about solar panels is that they can be set up in places that are too far away for power lines to reach.

	But you don't need solar electric panels to make use of solar energy. People in some countries build solar ovens to cook food.	Hey Home Crew, want a nice warm cup of sun tea?

Well then, make your own solar oven!


	A shoe box without a top
	Black construction paper
	Plastic wrap
	Foil
	Water
	2 cups
	A thermometer
	Tape

	Make your own solar oven out of the bottom of a shoe box. Cut one of the only sides of the shoe box off. Cut the two short sides at an angle.
	Now, line the bottom of the box with black paper and the sides with foil.
	Make a cover with the plastic wrap. Tape the plastic wrap along the sides, but leave a corner untaped so you can lift it up.
	Put your solar oven in the sunniest place you can find.
	Fill two paper cups with warm water. Put one in the solar oven and the other outside the box.
	Wait 30 minutes and take the temperature of each cup of water. If you don't have a lab thermometer, just feel the water.
	*Is one cup of water warmer than the other?* *Can you think of ways to make your solar oven even hotter?* *What could you cook in your solar oven?*
	Brew tea or make instant rice in your oven for starters. If it's really sunny, you should have tea in about 15 minutes and instant rice in about half an hour.

Some of the panels that you see on houses collect energy from the sun to heat water. This energy comes as heat and light. The heated water is then used to make tap water hot or to run through pipes to keep a house toasty warm.

A different type of solar panel collects solar energy and turns it into electricity! You may see these panels on the roofs of homes, too. Many calculators that you see today use such panels to collect light for power.