Film Festival 2006
Rowena Gerber and the Solar Oven Project

Rowena Gerber is a dedicated humanitarian and the inventive director of ACES (The Abess Center for Environmental Studies) at Miami Country Day School. She has done much to further solar cooking in the United States and around the world. She’s taught literally hundreds of kids about solar cooking. Her elementary students raise money from the organic gardens they plant, then partner with the Miami Shores Rotary Club to send SOLAR OVENS to places like AFGHANISTAN and HAITI.Rowena's heroes include Paul Munsen, President of Sun Ovens, who she admires because of his relentless work to aid people in developing countries.

MY HERO with support from The American Legion Child Welfare Foundation produced an award winning short film about Rowena Gerber, and her students from Miami Country Day School as they introduce youth from around the globe to their work with solar cooking at the 2006 international YouthCan conference in New York City. Videographer Skip Blumberg in this film combines interviews with both Rowena and her hero Paul Munsen, President of Sun Ovens, as well as fun excerpts of her students at the conference and the reactions of other youth conference listeners, the enthusiasm and involvement of these students in international environmental care is inspiring. In addition, the film shows the application of the solar cookers in rural villages in Africa. This film educates adults and inspires children as well, and reflects how the energy of youth can contribute to improving environmental and human welfare concerns around the world.

Student and Solar Oven Project Ambassador Andy: Solar energy, which is energy we get from the sun, is the cleanest source of energy.

Rowena describes how it all began, saying "It was a little class project that we started. It was going to last one week, now its lasted 12 years. We have a lab set up, the Abess Center for Environmental Studies with over a hundred and fifty animals, 30 gardens, and our solar cooking projects, and all the lessons are based on inquiry science. The children go out and explore, they ask the questions first, and then they care about finding the answer. They don’t have to look to me for the answers, they know they can investigate and discover on their own."

A women cooks with a solar oven in Ndianda, a small village in Southeast Senegal

Paul Munsen: It’s magic; it’s a magic box. This will get up to 400 degrees farenheit in really good sun, but consistently between 325 and 360 degrees, so it boils, bakes and steams, and does a wonderful job.

Rowena: Solar cookers are so important because there are two billion people on earth who have to use wood for their fuel.

Paul: In most countries we can replace about 70% of the use of wood and charcoal, and it has a very big effect on the environment. One oven used in Africa can replace up to 4,000 pounds of wood each year, which is about 7,000 pounds of CO-2 emissions that go into the air and have a major effect on global warming. The wonderful thing is that once a family in a developing country gets a solar oven, they’re able to use is for 15 to 20 years and the sun is free!