When I taught professionally, I had Bunsen burners. Like my colleagues, we used them as seldom as possible. (The gas has a switch behind a panel, which remains locked.) Have you seen 40 kids doing lab in a classroom? It’s terrifying! We all used sets of electric burners whenever possible. It makes an excellent source of heat—especially if you aren’t wild about using your kitchen stove. I’m not a fan of alcohol burners. Too often a kiddos knocks them over and produces a waterfall of fire. Yikes!
I use an electric kettle to heat water for hot water baths, too.
Whenever possible, we use tea candles. They are safer and cheaper—my favorite type of equipment! You can use tea candles with a small, camp stove. The pellets sold for camp stoves burns very hot! I prefer tea candles. I like to use a cutting board, cork coaster, or bread stone with any heat source.
Lastly, we use Sterno for some labs such as the flame test lab.
Yes, there are portable burners. Good grief! Look at the prices!
Lastly, I want to try microburners in lab. They do use alcohol, but fit into a combination, reaction plate. The microburner and combination plate are in RADMASTE kits. The tiny burners use only a small amount of alcohol and are secured in the reaction plate. I’m willing to try—under close supervision. I found a lot of RADMASTE kits online. They are scarce in the U.S. Flinn sells microscale equipment. However, you need to call customer service and have materials sent to a business. They have mailed to the church office before.
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