Mountlake Terrace High School chemistry teacher John Traxler is out of his element these days.

Traxler has taught at the high school for 30 years, most of it in the chemistry department. He’s a favorite among students at the school due to the eye-catching lab demonstrations he performs for his classes nearly every day. 

“My schtick has always been the ‘demo’ guy,” Traxler readily admits. “I tried to do daily demos of exciting chemistry, with minor explosions, lots of colors, lights, etc. But to be safe they have to be in a chemistry classroom with appropriate safety precautions and proper disposal.”

Unfortunately for his students, the coronavirus pandemic and Washington state’s response of closing all schools has ended Traxler’s “schtick” for this school year. For him and fellow Terrace chemistry teacher Mark Burbank, remote learning has taken away the opportunity to lead students in awe-inspiring lab experiments that not only amaze but also teach principles of chemical science.

“I did bring a few things home and have done a few ‘hands-on’ lab activities, but it’s not the same,” Traxler said. (You can see a video of Traxler teaching here.)

Approximately 200 Mountlake Terrace students are taking chemistry and AP chemistry classes being taught remotely by Traxler and Burbank this spring. The classes have been popular in the past not only because of their engaging nature but because most four-year colleges are recommending prospective students include chemistry among their high school science classes.

For their remote teaching, Traxler and Burbank are both conducting lab experiments in their homes, filming that work and then including those videos in their weekly lesson plans. But those lab presentations are limited in scope — and flash — as a domestic kitchen or home workspace just doesn’t have the materials or instruments needed to create big chemical reactions.

Even the old standby chemistry demonstration of crushing an aluminum can by putting a little water in it, heating it to a steam and then quickly turning the can over in ice doesn’t go as well when viewed on a computer screen, Burbank noted.

“It’s really neat to see that live versus seeing it on a video,” he said.

Burbank, who has also taught for nearly 30 years, has set up a makeshift lab inside a home workspace to film lab work. He considers himself fortunate to be able to present as much as he does to his students online, especially with the restriction that the Edmonds School District has put on teachers to stay out of their classrooms during the shutdown.

Burbank recalled the couple days in March he had to prepare for the prospect of teaching his chemistry classes online. “I grabbed a couple boxes of as much lab materials as I could knowing that, okay, what I can do is I can film the labs from home and then show what’s going on, then present the data to the students,” he said. “And they can take the data as if they collected it and analyze it. So in grabbing stuff I was lucky in that sense.”

Even though they film their own lab work and share links to other experiments available online, Burbank and Traxler still feel restrained in their ability to present engaging and challenging chemistry lesson plans to their students. 

“(There are) lots of (labs) I just can’t do at home,” Traxler noted. “I have supplemented with pHet simulations (a Colorado online educational resource) where they can at least manipulate variables, but nothing is quite like holding it in your hands; you need to be able to smell, hear, feel the material.”

An idea of filming additional lab experiments in the chemistry classrooms of Mountlake Terrace High School was nixed by Edmonds School District officials

“We’ve asked permission from the district – can we come in at some point in the next couple of weeks and spend a day in our classroom,” Burbank said, “where we can go into the chem supply room and pull some of these things out and actually do some of the more complex labs, filming it and then be able to use those in classes. The word from the district at this point is ‘no.’”

Traxler is troubled his students are missing out on the hands-on lab opportunities usually part of his spring semester chemistry classes. “I am concerned about them getting the full knowledge,” he said.

Traxler also said that he fears a general anxiety is holding back some of his students from performing at their best right now. “I have had lots of kids admit that they are just not working because they are too down, because they can’t seem to get motivated – and chem kids are usually amongst the most motivated kids,” he said.

Despite the concerns, Traxler is optimistic that chemistry students at Mountlake Terrace High School will rise above the challenges of the time – and of remote learning. 

“Huge numbers of my kids are doing great,” he concluded. “They turn in everything, they send me questions, I post videos going over problems and doing simple demos. They are still learning advanced chem and will do fine on the upcoming AP Chem test; they will be prepared for next year, for college and beyond. I have been teaching 30 years and if I have learned anything it’s that kids are strong and resilient.”

— By Doug Petrowski