Insulation Lab
MS-PS3-3 asks students to design, build and test a device that slows energy moving. Insulation Lab is that design challenge with a clock on it: build a box from real materials on a budget, see how much of the ice is left, change one thing, and test again.
Using this with a class? Make a free class and add your students yourself: each gets a username and password, with no email or Google account needed. Or give them one join code. Using Google Classroom? Post the link there; with a free class, the link also puts each student in your class, so you see their work. mytekDev is also available from the Google Workspace Marketplace, so your school's Google admin can install it for everyone.A first lesson: One period: guess, test an empty shoe box, then wrap the ice and pack the space and compare. A second period to set criteria, build the best design for real with a real ice cube, and type the real result beside the prediction.
Set up a free class Share to Google ClassroomWhat a student actually does
A shoe box sits on a lab bench, cut open down the middle so every layer of its wall shows, with a 30 gram ice cube waiting on a kitchen scale beside it. The student builds the box the way a box is really built, in order: choose the container, line the walls, wrap the ice, fill the space around it, close the lid and tape the corners, cover the outside. Every material is drawn as itself in the cut: corrugated cardboard, foam board, bubble wrap, felt, crumpled newspaper, packing peanuts. Every piece has a price, and the budget bar fills as the box does. Too much lining and the ice no longer fits, and the app says by how much.
Test runs 30 minutes in about 30 seconds. The cube moves into the box, small glowing dots of energy drift in from the warm room through each layer of the walls and into the ice, the ice shrinks over a puddle, and a lens above the box shows one wall up close, the dots crawling through foam and flashing through cardboard. Then the ice goes back on the scale and is weighed. Every test stays on the graph and in a table that says what changed, so the next question is always which change did the most for the money.
Swap the job puts a jar of warm water in the same box, and the same box keeps it warm. The Shelter is a small cardboard house on a cold porch, with a window, a door and a jar of hot water as its only heater. A heat camera shows the outside of either one the way a thermal camera does. A sheet asks questions that quote the student's own tests, a build sheet turns any test into a shopping list and steps, and the real result goes beside the prediction.
The Shelter on the heat camera. The walls are lined with foam board, so their outside stays nearly as cold as the porch. The open door glows: energy is pouring out of it. The same idea a home energy auditor uses to find leaks.
What they are learning while they work
Nothing here is presented as a lesson. This is what the activity is made of.
| What the student does | What it is |
|---|---|
| Watches the dots move from the warm room into the ice, never out of it | Energy moves from warmer to cooler. The room is warmer than the ice, so energy flows in and the ice melts. Nothing called cold flows out. Insulation does not make cold or heat; it slows energy down. |
| Wraps the ice in cotton and it lasts longer | Trapped still air. Foam, batting, felt, bubble wrap and crumpled paper work because they hold air in small pockets where it cannot move. Plastic and metal are solid and let energy straight through. |
| Lines the walls with foam and gains less than wrapping the ice did | Where insulation goes matters. With one small ice cube in a big box, the air inside stays nearly as warm as the room, so what touches the ice does more than the walls. In a full cooler the walls matter more. |
| Swaps the job and finds the best ice box also keeps the jar warmest | One material, both jobs. Insulation slows energy moving either way: into a cold thing or out of a warm one. A sweater keeps ice cold too. |
| Tapes the lid and the corners | Air carries energy. Warm air sneaking in through gaps brings energy with it. Sealing them matters most once the walls are already good. |
| Changes one thing between tests | Fair tests and the design loop. Criteria and constraints, a test, one change, another test: the engineering design process of MS-ETS1, with the data to decide what to change next. |
| Wraps the house's jar and the house gets colder | Insulation keeps energy where it is. Around the heater, insulation slows energy reaching the room. Over two hours the room is colder; over a whole night the wrapped jar keeps giving off energy after a bare one has cooled. |
How to tell whether it landed
Ask, and let them show you. A student who has understood it can answer these without help.
- Does a cooler keep the cold in, or keep something out? What is it?
- Why does crumpled newspaper work better than flat newspaper?
- Your box kept more ice when you wrapped the cube than when you lined the walls. Why?
- Would a wool sweater make an ice cube melt faster or slower?
- Foil is shiny. When does it help, and when does it hardly do anything?
- Which change did the most for the money in your tests? How do you know it was that change and not another?
Use it in your subject
Not a technology class? Then the app is how students show what they learned in your unit. More projects for every subject.
Middle school physical science
MS-PS3-3 directly: design, build and test a device that slows thermal energy transfer, with the materials' properties, a cost constraint and the rate of change as the measure. MS-PS3-4 with the ice size and the jar.
Engineering and STEM
MS-ETS1-1 to 1-4: criteria and constraints written as one sentence, tests compared side by side, one change at a time, and a model to test ideas before building the real one.
High school physical science
The same build with watts per kelvin, the energy it takes to melt a gram of ice, and how long a box takes to warm or cool. HS-PS3-4 and the trade-offs of HS-ETS1-3.
Homeschool and co-ops
The kitchen version needs a shoe box, a sock, newspaper, foil and a kitchen scale. The app is the rehearsal, the ice cube is the test.
Practical notes
- AgesGrades 6 to 8 are the home ground: the screen shows grams, degrees, minutes and dollars, never an energy total, which keeps calculation out of it the way MS-PS3-3 does. The high school level adds watts per kelvin and the energy to melt ice for grades 9 and 10.
- TimeOne period to test and improve a box. A second to build the best one for real and compare.
- EquipmentA computer or Chromebook with a modern browser. Nothing to install. A projector for Big screen. For the real build: shoe boxes, tape, whatever insulation is in the supply bin, ice cubes and a kitchen scale.
- CostFree. The app has no paid tier.
- PrepRun the empty shoe box once, then wrap the ice and test again, about ten minutes. That is the whole demo.
- In a groupOpen Setup in the app's header: the level, the Cooler or the Shelter, the budget, which materials are on the shelf and what each costs (match your supply bin), whether students can change the room and the test length, the sheet's questions, and a printed answer key with the best build your shelf and budget allow.
For co-ops, microschools, and classrooms
Set it up once in Setup and hand the project out as the starter; the shelf, the prices and the budget travel with it. With a free account the students' sheets come back to you as saved projects, with their tests and their answers.
Common questions
Is it free?
Yes. Insulation Lab has no paid tier, and it can be tried right on this page without an account.
Does it replace the real ice cube challenge?
No, it rehearses it. Students try twenty ideas in the time one real test takes, then build the best one for real. A build sheet gives the shopping list and the steps, and the real result goes beside the app's prediction.
Will the real result match the app?
Close, not exact. The app compares designs well; real boxes vary. A packed box usually loses a little more ice than the app says, because damp paper carries energy better and a cube resting on the floor melts from below. Foil-wrapped ice often does worse for real, because meltwater wets the foil. Those differences are good things to talk about.
Why did lining the walls do so little?
With one small ice cube in a big box, the cube is too small to cool the air inside, so the air stays nearly as warm as the room. What touches the ice matters most. Use the 500 g block or a longer test in Test conditions and the walls start to matter, the way they do in a full cooler.
Is the physics accurate?
Every material value, the air gap rule, the latent heat of ice and every sentence a student reads were checked against sources by an independent review. What is simplified is listed in How it works: each wall is treated as one, the air inside as one temperature, and the values for newspaper, bubble wrap and packing peanuts are estimates.
Is anything in it unsafe to copy?
The build sheet's safety lines go with every build: warm water only as warm as an adult says is safe, no light bulbs, heat lamps or heaters in a box, no dry ice, and never a person or an animal in a box. Fiberglass is in the app only.
Does it run on Chromebooks?
Yes. It draws in 2D in the browser with nothing to install, and it has a Big screen mode for a projector.
Still have a question? Ask us, and a person will write back.
Where to go next
Badge kits and learning kits
Step-by-step projects in Insulation Lab that end with a certificate: for a scout badge, or for homeschool families and classes.
- Keep a Cube: Learning kit badge, or the learning kit for grades 6-8
Lesson plans
4 ready-to-teach class periods with a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets.
Start with Insulation Lab
Trying it costs nothing and takes about five minutes. An account is what makes the work last.
Insulation Lab is one of the making apps on the platform. Play-money prices are not real prices; set your own in Setup to match what is in your supply bin.
Page last reviewed November 2026.
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