The Bell Rang and No One Wanted to Leave: Engaging a Class with Xplorlabs

Engaging students in eighth-grade STEM standards can be a challenge. To combat the lack of interest I so often saw, I decided to teach heat transfer by popping popcorn in different ways. This seemed like the ideal way to engage my students and allow them to see all the different types of heat firsthand.

This was going well until the popcorn on the stove started to burn the pan. Smoke was everywhere, and my principal was less than thrilled. However, she loved the fact that I was enthusiastic about trying to give my students an authentic experience with heat transfer. A couple weeks later she came and asked me if I would like to attend a professional development workshop about fire forensics. This is where I first learned about UL Research Institutes’ Office of Research Experiences & Education and Xplorlabs.

During my training, I quickly realized how much Xplorlabs had to offer in my classroom, and I could teach heat transformations in a whole new way. My students talked about the fire forensics experience the entire year. Not only were they engaged, but they remembered how heat transfers.

My love of Xplorlabs continued to grow as more pathways were added to the website. In 2023, I was asked to apply for the Xplorlabs Educator Fellowship. I knew this experience would allow me new opportunities to teach my standards in a way that provides my students with a real-world problem and the challenge to solve it. This would also be a way for me to grow as an educator.

How Xplorlabs connects to real-world phenomena
Lithium-ion batteries have become a hot topic. This started when hoverboards became a popular gift for kids, but we saw headlines of some bursting into flames. To help students understand the importance of battery safety and the potential fire risk surrounding lithium-ion battery devices, Xplorlabs created a pathway called The Science of Thermal Runaway. I dug a little deeper, attended training, and decided it was the next Xplorlabs pathway I would implement in my classroom.

Implementing a pathway in your classroom
Together with the Xplorlabs Educator Fellows, I designed lessons to teach my students about thermal runaway. Our daily classes looked like this:

Day 1: The pathway starts with an interactive video that looks at an electric scooter as it charges. Using a “See, Think, Wonder” graphic organizer I created, I had students write down observations and questions about the video.
Day 2: My students were challenged to create a container that would prevent the temperature from increasing. In collaborative groups, the students designed, built, tested, and rebuilt containers. They each had a set job, and they took that job seriously. They love a challenge and truly enjoyed attempting to build a container that would work.
Day 3: The last part of the assignment involved writing about their experience and defending their build. The beauty of this was seeing the vocabulary I wanted them to learn being used correctly throughout their writing.

“Students didn’t want to leave”
It didn’t take long after starting the thermal runaway pathway to see that my students were extremely interested in the lesson. It was one of the lessons where the bell rang and the students didn’t want to leave. At the end, it was so encouraging to see how dedicated these students were to their work and their learning.

A new professional challenge after 20 years of teaching
The fellowship has challenged me to continue to pursue new things and to be a better teacher. This is my 20th year of teaching. I would lie if I said that some things haven’t become routine. I could easily use the things I used 10 years ago, but my students are not the same as the students I had back then.

I hope that as you read this, you will be inspired to step out and try something new. All students should have the opportunity to learn science practically. The more that we teach our students how to solve problems and that it’s okay to fail because you are going to rebuild it and give them authentic experiences, the more it deepens their understanding.