Australia's Science Forum

Morning Brains Trust,

How does everyone go about getting the kids to remove hot beakers full of liquid and tripods to put away? We generally let them cool for a few minutes while they are writing up results; then pack up. We have never had an accident.

Does anyone use heat gloves? one stored at each work station for example.

We have silicon hot hands in the labs but they don't get used. They are usually just left to cool down before handling - probably a safer option than trying to handle when they are still hot (even with protective gloves).
If the class goes really over time, I will put the equipment away, but that is rare.

We use these ones, haven't had any issues with them. Often though we tell them to leave the hot gear and we duck in between classes and put away.

Same as everyone else. I do have heat proof gloves and some pracs require them. Heating metal rods if they have to change them for example. Or doing multiple pracs in a row if they have to move stuff.

If they are too hot to touch, they are too hot to put away. Ours are left to cool and like Merilyn said, on the rare occasion a class runs overtime and they don’t have time to cool before the lesson ends then I just pack those few things away later. Anything not hot is still required to be packed away by the students unless there has been a major glitch in time management/unforeseen interruptions and I have to pack away more.