How Magnifying Lenses Affect Solar Water Heaters

Students scurried along the ridge to position their containers in just the right spot in relationship to the sun. 5th grade science students are currently learning how to efficiently heat up water using only solar energy. Several students in 5B wondered if magnifying lenses might help their solar water heaters heat up faster. They took mini-solar water heaters outside for testing and recorded their data. Some students tried large lenses and some tried single or multiple small lenses. Although a few melted the plastic in their solar water heaters (!), they're not sure yet if the lenses had a significant effect on how how quickly the water heated up. They'll check and compare their results to the control data collected for the one solar water heater that had no magnifying lenses at all. It will be interesting to see if the students decide to incorporate magnifying lenses into their large solar water heaters they'll build for the Solar-Water-Heat-a-thon coming soon!