Lab Drawers in my High School Chemistry Classroom

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Have you inherited a chemistry classroom with a lot of stuff? Not sure what to do with all that stuff or your lab drawers? Not sure how to go about organizing all the lab equipment in your chemistry class? I was once in your position. I inherited my classroom (ten years ago now, jeez) after a few years of turnover prior to my tenure that started after the sudden death of a colleague during the school year. Needless to say, the room was neglected for a time after that terrible event. It took me years to get the organization and set-up I wanted with the lab drawers in my high school chemistry classroom.

In this post, I am going to share my current set-up for the lab drawers in my chemistry classroom. I’ll talk about how I organized the drawers, what chemistry lab equipment I keep in my lab drawers, and how I assign drawers and keep track of inventory for my lab drawers.

Lab Drawer Labels

I’m sure you can see that my lab tables are definitely not brand new. Our building is a little over 50 years old, and these lab tables are original to the building. They have seen quite a lot in their time, and that is evidenced in their wear and tear. You may notice that there are metal engraved numbers on each drawer. Let me tell you-when I got to my room 10 years ago, there were missing keys, mismatched keys, and broken keys for all of these drawers. Not to mention that they were in no logical order. A few years back, the office was looking for larger projects to spend some leftover money on at the end of the school year. I got so lucky! Not only did I get some new electronic balances, but I also was able to get new locks for ALL of my drawers. When I tell you there are 84 drawers in 6 lab tables, this becomes even greater of a gift! They bought locks for 84 drawers!

And because I am a very organized person, I set out to lay them out in a way that made more sense for me and my students. Purchasing 84 different locks and keys was not feasible (although that is the way they did it when the building was originally built). Instead, I got 6 different types of locks. This means all drawers at Table A have the same key. All the drawers at Table B have the same key. And so on and so forth. But shhhh…don’t tell the kids. I set it up to make it look like each drawer has a unique key. lol

Each table has 12 drawers for students. I labeled these 1-12. At table A, they are labeled A1, A2, and all the way through until A12. As I have 6 lab tables, I repeated this for Tables B, C, D, E, and F. I used vinyl to label the drawers, as I was trying to avoid adding more adhesive (from stickers, etc.) to these drawers. These drawers had already seen far too much adhesive…and it’s so hard to get off. So I chose vinyl, which should be easier to remove in the future if needed. Each table contains 2 additional drawers, which I will detail below. Keep reading to see how I store all those keys.

Oh, and I made each table have a different color to make it visually clear for the students which table is which and which keys go with which table. And to be extra, I made it ROYGBV. Cause…light and chemistry.

Test Tube Rack Drawer and Apron Drawer

Each lab table has two additional drawers beyond the drawers available to students. This includes a test tube rack drawer and an apron drawer, labeled with vinyl accordingly. There are keys for these drawers as well, so whenever these drawers are needed, students grab the appropriate key for whichever drawer is needed.

Lab Drawer Keys

I have always had this key organizer in my classroom as long as I have been at my current school. When I first got to my school, this was full of broken and mislabeled keys, and it was covered in old stickers and adhesive from old stickers. Gross. When I got the new locks in my drawers, I knew I had to revamp this key rack immensely. I scrubbed and scraped as much of the old stickers and adhesive off as I could. I used my Cricut and cut out vinyl labels to put above each key hook.

What came first, the colored rainbow vinyl on the lab drawers in the tables, or these key rings? I think I found the key rings first. I wanted key rings that I could label, and I thought it might be easier if each table had a different color, so that I could easily put correct keys in the right spot if a student hung it on the wrong hook. Plus-they came in a large pack for a decent price. Because I needed a lot of key rings.

Glassware and Equipment in the Lab Drawers

Here are the things I keep in my lab drawers. I currently teach Honors Chemistry and AP Chemistry students, so some of these pieces are used by all students, whereas some are just used in AP Chemistry. But it is so much easier to have all items in ALL drawers as opposed to trying to keep track of which drawers have AP Chem stuff in it. I do also want to say that my building has a TON of glassware. Almost all of the glassware was already available and I did not have to purchase it for the drawers. Other things I did not have a lot of. For example, I did not have 72 pipette fillers. Over the course of several years, I would add some pipette fillers to my supply list to be purchased from our science department budget.

• 10 mL, 25 or 50 mL, and 100 mL graduated cylinders

• 250 mL and 125 mL Erlenmeyer flasks

• Beakers in 4 sizes (50 mL, 100 mL, 250 mL, 500 mL or sizes close to these)

• 1 funnel

• clay triangle

• 1 evaporating dish

• 1 crucible and lid

• 8-10 test tubes

• 1 10 mL pipette and pipette filler

• 1 watch glass

• 2-3 glass squares

• 1 stir rod

• 1 scoopula

• 1 dropper

• 1 tongs, 1 tweezer, 1 test tube clamp

• 1 ring stand clamp

• 1 iron ring

• 2 test tube brushes (one of which is actually a straw/bottle brush as I have test tubes that needed a smaller brush)

• 1 wire gauze

• 6 cuvettes with lids (if I’m lucky…why do they sell 100 cuvettes but only 20 lids?!) that I keep in a sandwich bag

I have found that this list generally suffices for most labs. There are some pieces of equipment that I just simply do not have enough of to put them in all the drawers. For example-volumetric flasks. These are so expensive. So when we need these, I pull them out from a cabinet, and I have enough to give each pair what they need.

Lab Drawer Checkout and Inventory

My students will perform labs in pairs. I have a seating chart, so students pick a partner at their table, and then I have them add their names to a shared Google Doc. When we switch seats (around the quarter mark), I have the students pick a new partner at their table and a new drawer.

Inventory is done by my students as well. When I first got the new locks and keys, I took EVERYTHING out of the drawers and put all of the same stuff in each drawer. And I laid it out neatly in each drawer. But after students started using them, they were not going to stay neat and I simply don’t have the time to check all the drawers and check inventory. So after the students sign up for a drawer, they complete a Google form. This Google form contains all of the items and the students simply check “yes” or “no” to tell me if it is in their drawer. I go back later and add anything that is missing. TIP-include a picture of each item in the form. I have found that students don’t always know what some of this glassware looks like, especially at the beginning of the year.

So that’s it. My lab drawer set-up and organization. Do you have drawers for your students to use? If you do, what do you keep in your lab drawers? Let me know on Instagram! Thanks for reading! Happy teaching!

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