And hot plates! Here is an article about using sand baths for glass beakers on hot plates. A post on social media suggested making a simple sand bath with sand in a mini-aluminum pie plate for beakers on top of a hot plate. I use wire gauze under glass beakers on hot plate burners.
This post could be labeled Chemistry on a Shoestring! We use several tools to heat chemicals. We use electric burners to heat most solutions. But when I heat chemicals in test tubes, we need a different source. The Hydrate or Percent Composition lab works best with a Bunsen burner. We used cans of sterno, instead. We were running out of sterno; I broke out the two alcohol burners. Here are detailed instructions to use a wickless alcohol burner. Here are detailed instructions to use an alcohol burner with a wick. My alcohol burners were in science kits I bought through Good Will. Here is the most important piece of information! The wickless burner uses denatured ethanol; the alcohol burner with a wick uses rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol). We dumped the alcohol down the drain after lab concluded—just to be safe.
I loathe alcohol burners. I worry about fires endlessly. Sterno usually works fine. However, if you supervise the teens closely, these burners are fine. If you have a gas stove at your home, use it to heat test tubes. Be sure to turn on the hood fan. Do you have a camp stove? This works well for heating test tubes, too.
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