On June the 21th, French Pilot Schools of the ClimACT Project were invited to participate to the « Solaris Day » a solar oven contest. This event was organized by the municipality of La Rochelle and took place in the “Relais Nature de la moulinette”, a public structure for environmental awareness. 120 children participated to this contest.
During this school year, four schools from La Rochelle prepared and built a solar oven. On the Solaris day, the children and their teacher presented their oven to the jury.
Three awards:
- The first award: The “Grandes Varennes” school. Their oven had the higher temperature. The children worked from the beginning of the contest with a functional specification document and tested many ideas to improve their oven. Two classes worked together for this project: a group of 10 years old kids and a class with specific-need pupils.
- The award for Understanding: the school of “Bongraine”. They worked with student from the university and visited a solar building in order to learn more about solar energy. Their oven did not gave the best performance but the students were able to answer to the jury despite their young age (7/8 year old)!
- The award for Creativity: the school of “Marie Marvingt”. The children had the chance to test all their idea to concentrate the sun. Indeed, they proposed to very unusual oven. They also made a nice decoration of their oven and only used recycled material for the construction.
In order to reduce our carbon footprint, participants were asked to bring a “zero waste” picnic. In addition to the jury, the 100 pupils played many games and participated to activities related to the sun and to solar energy. Two non-governmental organization brought their material: a drying oven, an oven, a solar barbecue and many other type of material.
The winning oven creator will be asked to participate to the final contest between the other countries participating in the ClimACT project.
Photo : J. Chauvet, E. Maloingne, C. Seigneurbieu
Workshop: “How to make a fire with the sun”
The organization “Defis energie 17” presenting their material
The jury observing the oven from “Grandes Varennes” school
Ovens from the “Marie Marvingt” school
