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One of the best parts of summer is having a cookout, and for lots of people one of the best parts of a cookout is hot dogs. They’re so versatile! You can cook them in the microwave, boil them on the stove, heat them in the toaster oven, grill them on gas or charcoal, or even just cook them on a stick over the campfire. Today we’re going to look a little further away than the kitchen or the backyard to put the hot in our dogs. About 93 million miles away. Today, with the help of some reused supplies, we’re going to cook our hot dogs with the sun!
Materials:
- An empty Pringles can
- Plastic wrap
- Tape
- A wooden skewer
- A permanent marker
- A ruler
- An Exacto knife
- An electric drill
- A hot glue gun (optional)
Process:
- Clean out the Pringles can. Make sure there aren’t any crumbs left inside and that it’s nice and dry.
- Use your ruler and your marker to draw a rectangle on the side of the can. It should be about as wide as the “Nutrition Facts” box and a couple of inches longer than a normal hot dog.
- Have your adult use the Exacto knife to cut out the rectangle. Save the cutout piece for later.
- Carefully push the wooden skewer through the center of the lid of the Pringles can.
- Have your adult use the drill to drill a hole in the center of the metal bottom of the Pringles can. Make sure the hole is just a little bigger than the skewer.
- Push a hot dog onto the skewer and then put the whole thing into the can. Make sure the skewer comes out the hole in the bottom, that the lid is on tight, and that the hot dog is in the middle of the rectangular window you cut in the can.
- Tape some plastic wrap across the window to close up the can.
- Using tape or your hot glue gun, attach the rectangular piece you cut out earlier to the side of the can to help keep it from rolling around.
- Face the window towards the sun and go play until your hot dog is all cooked through!
Summary:
We all know that the Earth gets its heat and light from the sun. We couldn’t do without it. Sunlight is necessary for plants to grow, and all living things need its warmth. We humans have even invented solar cell technology, which gathers sunlight and turns it into electricity! It’s no surprise that we can use it to cook a hot dog.
Take a look at the inside of the Pringles can. It’s nice and shiny. That shiny foil surface is one of the reasons we can use it to cook a hot dog. It reflects the light and heat from the sun onto the hot dog. The plastic wrap you covered the window with is the other big reason. That plastic wrap allows heat from the sun to go into the can but once it’s inside the plastic wrap helps keep it there. So the heat from the sun goes in, bounces onto the hot dog, and doesn’t escape again. It’s a perfect little solar oven.
A similar thing happens on Earth thanks to the carbon dioxide gas in our atmosphere. Light and heat from the sun go through it and hit the Earth, and some of it bounces off. The carbon dioxide bounces some of that heat back at us, keeping the Earth warm. It’s called the “greenhouse effect.” Too little carbon dioxide and it would be too cold; too much, though, and the Earth can get too hot for us. Our cars and power plants put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and because of that someday the Earth might be a lot warmer than we want it to be
Today, though, grab a couple of Pringles cans and relax in your backyard with your solar-cooked hot dogs.
