7 Tips to Take Your Classroom Lab to the Next Level

Science is best learned through first-hand experience with experiments. A classroom lab is an ideal place to start exploring fundamental scientific concepts.

While a traditional classroom environment helps students gain a theoretical understanding, a science lab classroom can allow them to observe science in action and learn it through live demonstrations, helping them better understand complex principles through a fun learning experience.

In schools, lab classes typically involve teachers demonstrating an experiment and giving students lab instructions. Standard classroom structures require students to observe, emulate, and perform experimental procedures as well as gather and analyze data and conclude the experiment. 

Optimizing the classroom lab learning experience can encourage student-focused, independent learning. It can help students improve their knowledge and application skills while developing a natural curiosity for the field of science. 

How To Optimize the Classroom Lab Learning Experience

Here are seven tips to optimize the classroom lab learning experience and help students develop a scientific bent of mind: 

1. Don't Skip Lab Safety Education

In a science lab, safety comes first. Lab safety training is important for ensuring the health and safety of students and staff, even at the elementary school level.

Here are some lab safety training recommendations:

• Discuss the importance of lab safety and how to create a safe lab environment with your students.
• Give them instructions for wearing protective equipment like lab coats, gloves, and goggles. 
• Give them instructions on how to safely perform the experiment clearly. 
• Teach them how to keep the lab classroom surfaces clean, especially at their workstations.
• Give them instructional coaching to handle specific chemicals with care. 
• Explain to them how to use and stow instruments like a microscope. 
• Inform them about the lab classroom model and safety equipment in case of emergency.
• Supervise them to make sure that they always follow all safety protocols. 

2. Let Students Choose the Variables

Every scientific method involves three kinds of variables:

• Independent variables, which are changed during an experiment
• Dependent variables, which are measured or tested during the experiment
• Control variables, which are kept unchanged throughout the experiment 

A classroom lab will let your students play with these variables and see how they affect the experiment. While following standard classroom practices, provide your students with different experimental variables. Let them choose the variables they’d like to change so that they can observe the experiment from other perspectives.

3. Make Students a Part of the Experiment

Hands-on experience is an exciting and engaging way to learn. So, while maintaining classroom structures and complete supervision, allow your students to participate in the experiment. 

Discuss the activity, lab procedures and safety, and materials required for the experiment. You can demonstrate the activity and then ask your students to repeat it. Provide handouts, which they can refer to during and after the experiment.

Train your students to obtain, clean, use, and stow away the equipment and required materials. Encourage them to experiment, play with the variables, and learn independently. It’ll help them adopt a scientific mindset, improve their understanding, and provide them with a sense of student achievement.

4. Give Easy Take-Home Lab Assignments

Whether it involves creating a chemical reaction with baking soda and vinegar, collecting leaf specimens, or building a simple machine with scraps, experimenting with science at home can be stimulating and educative. You can evoke curiosity, creativity, and enthusiasm to learn science by giving your students easy DIY lab assignments as homework. 

They can set up a makeshift lab at home and get creative with household materials. Whether they have a student microscope or a simple magnifying glass at home, ask your students to use proper safety gear. 

5. Encourage Group Work

Group work can create a dynamic learning environment, allowing different minds to mingle and learn something new. However, forming and standardizing lab groups can be challenging in classroom environments. 

To simplify grouping, divide your students alphabetically, randomly, or based on students’ preferences. Also, pair them based on contrasting student achievement levels so that they can work and learn together. Set up a peer-review system for different student groups to evaluate and learn from each other’s lab reports. 

6. Promote a Positive Classroom Culture

A positive classroom culture can foster learning and improve a student’s retention capacity. Some ways to build a positive lab classroom culture include:

• Building trust and rapport with your students.
• Engaging and interacting with them, and allowing them to ask queries.
• Making learning fun by letting them discover the world of science through trial and error. 
• Being fair, and letting all students participate in lab activities.
• Appreciating students when they get it right, and encouraging them to try again if they don’t. 

7. Be a Time-Efficient Teacher

When it comes to science experiments, time is of the utmost importance. Allowing your students to have fun with science may take up extra time. If an experiment remains incomplete, you may be unable to pick up where you left off in the previous lab class. So, maintain your classroom structures as well as prioritize and stick to your set schedule — all of this is crucial for enhancing time efficiency in your lab classroom. 

Plan your experiments in advance, but set aside some time for students to have fun. Create groups of students to manage parts of the procedure, and divide the work. You can also invite guest teachers to manage time and improve lab classroom efficiency. 

The Best Lab Classes Use the Best Supplies

Streamlining your classroom lab can foster a unique learning experience for students and help them develop a passion for discovering more. But, along with optimized classroom practices, a science lab needs proper high-quality lab supplies. 

With over 15 years of experience, AmScope specializes in selling best-in-class microscopes and other science supplies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. We offer a wide array of affordable, high-quality microscopes, microscope cameras, classroom lab equipment, and other science and educational supplies designed for students, professionals, and science enthusiasts alike. 

We believe in making science accessible to all. With AmScope’s science and educational supplies, you and your students can explore science in a classroom lab, at a research facility, or at home.