MIAMI, Florida - Outside the entrance to the Abess Center for Environmental Studies at Miami Country Day School, a handful of students use the heat of the sun to cook lunches in shoeboxes lined with foil. More students are indoors, rehearsing for a videoconference about solar cooking with students from Australia. It's a typical day of hands-on learning at this unusual facility where elementary students are given room and resources to explore environmental questions that grab their interest.

Rowena Gerber, director of the 12-year-old Abess Center, oversees a bustling empire that includes some 100 animals and 30 gardens, along with greenhouses, aviaries, science labs, computer stations, and other tools to support inquiry. Students from age four through fifth grade make regular use of the resource facility. Miami Country Day School, a private preparatory school, enrolls about 945 students from Pre K through high school.

Solar cookers use a clean, environmentally sound energy source.

Although all sorts of inquiry projects take place here, solar cooking has been a perennial favorite. Students learn how simple, low-tech cardboard boxes can be converted into solar-powered cookers. Using online resources, they discover why solar cookers offer a clean, environmentally sound energy alternative for people living in countries still dependent on wood as a fuel source. Many students eventually get involved in projects to raise awareness about solar cooking. The solar cooking project has earned worldwide attention as well as the endorsement of educators, including the National Science Teachers of America Environmental Excellence Award sponsored by SeaWorld/Busch Gardens.

Creating interdisciplinary learning projects around a topic like solar cooking "is so educational," says Gerber. "Students learn that a simple shoebox could save your life. You can use a cooker to desalinate water or cook a meal when you have no other source of heat."

For the youngest students, using solar cookers to melt cheese onto nachos offers a great introduction to energy. Older students might investigate engineering concepts as they design prototypes for more sophisticated cookers. Students learn about the scientific method by making hypotheses, testing different models, gathering data, and drawing conclusions.

Eventually, many students draw on what they have learned to become teachers and leaders for their peers around the world. Through a nonprofit organization called the International Education and Resource Network, or iEARN (www.iearn.org*), students in Miami regularly make connections with other children around the world. In recent years, solar cooking projects have brought Florida students into virtual contact with children in Australia, Jordan, Italy, India, Japan, Haiti, and elsewhere. The Florida students raised money through a plant sale to help send solar ovens to aid refugees in Afghanistan.

Gerber says the telecommunications network of iEARN gives students "the unique opportunity to study 'with' children from other countries, not 'about' them. They are cultivating cross-cultural bonds that could last well into the future."

Sometimes, global communication is a simple email exchange of information between distant schools. "But it can be difficult to convey all the information in print alone," Gerber says, "so we also use digital photos, Webcasts, and videoconferencing to share information." Miami students who speak a language other than English have translated resource materials. One boy, for instance, translated an advertisement for a solar cooker into Russian, his native language.

Videoconferences and Webcasts offer students more chances to step into a leadership role. "It's a natural environment to develop leadership skills," Gerber says. Before a videoconference, students do plenty of rehearsal to improve the odds of success. Once the videoconferences get underway, with Miami students using a studio at nearby Barry University, students create a bond that stretches across great distances. "They build friendships. There's a lot of give and take. They share failures as well as successes," says Gerber.

Gerber brings a background in early childhood education to the environmental studies program. Her teaching partner, Alice Key, specializes in educational technology. Key provides essential technology support and Web site development, which helps connect students in Florida with a global community of learners.

Miami Country Day School is well equipped to support students in projects that integrate technology, with networked computers in every classroom and laptops available to check out from the library. The Abess Center has five computers for students to use, along with digital cameras, a digital microscope, projection screen, and other resources.

Key helps students create electronic portfolios of their environmental projects, giving them a lasting record of what they have learned. By the time they enter high school, these students will shift to a more traditional college preparatory curriculum that offers less time for project-based learning. Older students often stop to visit in the Abess Center, however, lending a hand in the gardens or finding out from younger students where they're heading next with their solar cooking activities. "This kind of learning," says Gerber, "opens so many doors."

More information about the prize-winning solar cooking project, including a detailed lesson plan, is available online from the Abess Center, www.miamicountryday.org/aces/ SolarCookers/solar_cookers.htm*.