Students in the culinary class at Makerspace Summer Camp learned that you don’t always need a conventional oven to cook your food. In fact, baking in a solar oven can be pretty fun, especially if s’mores are on the menu.

Students began the week making marshmallows, “to be honest it’s pretty complicated,” according to Juniper Pennington, making bread and dehydrating fruit. Students wrapped up the week-long class with a perhaps less complicated but sweeter activity when they made solar ovens.

Facilitator Michelle Blackwell, who teaches fifth grade at Carriage Hills Elementary School, explained the concept. You take a cardboard box, in this case a small Priority mail box, and cut a rectangular flap in the top. You cover the flap with foil and put clear plastic wrap over the hole you just made. You put black paper in the bottom of your box and carefully place your assembled s’more on top of the paper. Lastly, you seal the box with tape to make sure it holds the heat in. Then you carry the contraption outside and place it in the sun so that the sunlight reflects off the foil and heats the food in the box.

Then you wait.

But how long should you wait?

“A couple of days,” Genesis Johnson-Blount guessed before amending her answer to a couple of hours.

On this day, it took about 45 minutes for the chocolate to melt. Students checked the progress of the s’mores and were excited to see that the chocolate was indeed melting.

“It melted!” Johnson-Blount said. “Mine melted all the way.”

Although the chocolate had melted, Blackwell said the marshmallows needed to be softer. So the students trooped back inside and went to lunch while their s’mores cooked longer.

Finally, the wonderful, gooey creations were deemed done.

Angelina Barreal stuck her finger in her melted chocolate and tasted it before taking her s’more back inside.

What did the s’mores taste like?

“Greatness,” Zaccai Peary said around a mouthful. “I haven’t had a s’more in two years. The marshmallow is way softer than it was, but it didn’t melt.”

“Melted and hot. Gooey,” Johnson-Blount said as she bit into hers. “It was a lesson to know you don’t have to use a grill or fire to make them.”

Makerspace Camp is provided by Lawton Public Schools in partnership with Arts for All Summer Institute.