HOW HOT WAS IT? BREAD BAKED IN FOIL-LINED BOXES.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Taking advantage of the abundant sunshine and heat in the Antelope Valley, 34 fifth-graders at Linda Verde School baked bread Monday using makeshift solar ovens. The ovens were made of cartons and boxes covered with aluminum foil and glass or plastic covers and contained muffin tins, pots, cast iron pans and soup cans in which to bake frozen pieces of bread dough.

``I think it's going to work well because right now I put my hand in it and it's really hot,'' said Giovanni Castaneda, 10, whose oven was a cardboard carton lined with foil and spray-painted black on the outside.

Castaneda had placed his dough inside a soup can filled with red rocks and also painted black to generate more heat.

``I put a glass on top so the sun's rays can go through and heat can't escape that easily,'' Castenada said.

The solar ovens attract the light from the sun and then trap it inside the boxes, much like a greenhouse effect, said teacher Terry Hermansen.

Hermansen brought his own handcrafted oven, which has reached temperatures as high as 310 degrees and in which he has baked bread, lasagna and chicken.

Some of the ovens had oven thermometers in them, so students could keep an eye on how hot it was getting inside.

Alvia Robinson, 10, made her oven out of a box covered with foil and covered with plastic wrap.

``I did it myself with a little help from my mom,'' Robinson said.

The students placed their solar ovens outside on the grass next to their classroom and waited several hours for the bread to bake.

At the end of the school day, the students found that most of the dough had turned into bread.

``In spite of the slight cloud cover, most of the kids had edible rolls. A few were doughy and most of them were edible,'' Hermansen said.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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(1 -- 2 -- color) Students at Linda Verde Elementary in Lancaster baked bread dough Monday, using solar ovens they had made from cartons that they wrapped in aluminum foil. Solar ovens refract sunlight and direct it inside the boxes, which causes a greenhouse effect.

(3) Fifth-graders at Linda Verde Elementary made their own solar ovens for a school project.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News