From 55-Gallon Drums to Bedazzled Goggles: How Flinn Scientific Is Redefining Hands-On Science

What does a company approaching its 50th anniversary look like when it refuses to stay stuck in the past? In this episode, recorded live on the exhibit floor at the NSTA Anaheim conference, hosts Andrew Kuhn and Patrice Semicek sit down with Mason Schoolcraft, head of product and sourcing at Flinn Scientific, to explore how a company that started by making chemistry classrooms safer has grown into a full-service hands-on learning partner for educators at every level. From a disposal guide for chemicals that have been sitting in a closet since 1942, to ready-to-go lab kits for elementary teachers with only 20 minutes of science time per week, Flinn is meeting teachers exactly where they are. Mason also shares why AI has its limits when volatile chemicals are involved — and why bedazzled goggles might just be the best marketing strategy in science education. 

Transcript

Andrew 0:44

Patrice, we are here day two live from Anaheim for the NSTA conference. And we have one of the culprits. Anyone who listened to our podcast yesterday. All the noise in the all the fun noise, the fun, the loud, the joy. This is coming from this organization.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Well, I also walked by earlier this morning, and it appeared people were bedazzling goggles.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

That's right. Yeah. We definitely try to bring the fun too. We definitely try to bring the fun to an STA. Yeah. So we're bedazzling goggles or we're sold out. All the spots are taken. Teachers have signed up for everything. As well as our person who runs the wheel gets pretty excited. So you can usually hear him wooing from across the floor.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

So that is definitely what we heard.

Andrew 1:32

Well, bedazzling for the win brought to you by Flynn Scientific. And here with us is Mason Schoolcraft. Welcome, Mason.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Excited to be at NSTA.

Andrew 1:44

What is your role with Flynn Scientific? How did you get to the hot seat for NSTA Voices?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yes, I lead our product and sourcing teams. So my team here at NSTA runs a lot of the workshops the scientists all report into me, as well as the team who decides what items we're going to sell and make sure we have the right features and items for teachers across our entire assortment.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

That sounds like a big job because you guys do a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

It is. I don't actually do anything. I have people who do all the actual work for me. So I just go do podcasts while they go and do things for me.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

I feel like that might be a little stretch, but okay. I like your vibe.

Andrew 2:20

That reminds me of a commercial that was either with UPS or FedEx. I know that they're competitors, they wouldn't be happy that I'm putting them together. But there was a guy who was in charge of shipping, and because they switched to UPS or FedEx, he had nothing to do. So he sat at his desk and said, busy, busy, really busy over here, no time to talk. And he was doing nothing. So that's always my goal.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

That must mean you have an amazing team, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yes, absolutely. A diverse team. Some that have been with Flynn less than a year, and some that have been with Flynn for 20, 30 years. So it's fun. I'm new to the science industry. So I've only been at Flynn a little over a year now. It's new learning to interact with science scientists, learning the education market. Previous experiences have always been around product. I love product of all forms, making sure your product works for customers. Yeah. But it's been in industrial distribution and hardware, not within serving teachers and science products. So it's all been new and had a great team kind of help get me up to speed, as well as some new additions that help look at the world a little bit differently.

Andrew 3:19

I'm curious, from your perspective, hearing that you've been there for about a year, what is Flynn's history?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah. So about 50 years next year. So next year will be our 50-year anniversary. Larry Flynn and his father founded the company. And really what they found, they were working with some big chemical companies, is that no one was serving the teacher market. So they would take this is my rendition of it, but 55-gallon drums of chemicals and put it down into 500 milliliters, the perfect amount for teachers. So, and pair that with a bunch of safety products and safety information to make sure that teachers could do high school chemistry safe. Obviously, over the 50 years from that, we've grown our offering and serve pretty much anything to do with science and STEM. But really, the foundation was making sure we could have chemicals in the classroom safely for teachers.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

That's fantastic. Because I remember when I was in school, they had like these entire portions of the classroom where they couldn't, we couldn't go into because of all like potions, and it felt very like Harry Potter-ish back there. We weren't allowed to go back there. So that's fantastic that that's what you guys are working on.

Andrew 4:22

It sounds like the way you explained it to me was that Flynn basically took it from Costco bulk buying down to what a normal person would actually need when they buy things. Because I know when I go there to get peanut butter, I end up with a three-gallon jug of peanut butter, and I only need it family size, not 30 people.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Exactly. And then I think especially wrapping it in safety so teachers felt comfortable because their peanut butter might explode on them if they leave it in the counter and it gets extra.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Peanut butter is a little wallet.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, it's volatile peanut butter. So really found foundationally making sure high school chemistry and then growing from there to high school science is safe as well as teachers have exactly what they need. So at some point through the history, late 80s, early 90s, really focused on how do we make kits, how do we make these labs easy for teachers, how do we save them time to the best of our ability?

Andrew 5:10

Let me say this, and this is actually, I think ties into the whole history conversation that you know, there are still a lot of teachers who think that Flynn as a supply catalog. For those of our listeners who might not know what a catalog is, it's this really big book that looks like a telephone book. Again, we're dating.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Are you assuming our listeners are all very young?

Andrew 5:28

I think our listeners are very varied and very uh, you know, have a have a large listening pool. Anyway, where you would flip through this, which would now we call that a website, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yes. We still do have catalogs, but it's also an online catalog. Yeah, just a website.

Andrew 5:43

Okay. So I guess I guess my question is what are they missing, right? Because in my mind, when I think of just that catalog right back in the 80s, that seemed more stagnant than I imagine what's happening now. What does it look like now to kind of catch our listeners up so they think about Flynn the way it is, not the way it might have been?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

I think one of the tailwinds over the last 10, 15 years for Flynn has been NGSS standards throughout science, which has really pushed hands-on science. So the way we view ourselves is we are a hands-on learning company. We want to make sure that teachers feel empowered and have the supplies and everything they need to do hands-on learning. And that can look a bunch of different ways. That could be, to your point, of a catalog, just selling them a chemical off the shelf. Yeah. That could be selling them a kit that they'll use in one period. And I think the evolution we're really making is how do we make supplemental products for them that solve more of their problems? So we're really looking at it through the lens of the teacher. What are their problems? One of our new product lines that we launched is Flynn in real life. And that's really focused on instead of just doing a chemistry experiment or a physics experiment, how do I get a class to do a two-week or one-week set of labs that all go together, that fit together, that have some loose, I'll call it curriculum, but really it's just content around it. So they can learn something that's interesting to them and kids will be excited to learn about.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

That sounds like a ton of fun. I want to do one of those.

Andrew 7:07

What I'm hearing is that you're not a wholesaler. You actually want to partner with schools and districts and be part of making the difference, not just supplying them with what they need from a materials standpoint. You want to help supply them in every angle, right? What can we do to help enrich this experience for you, the educator, but also for the student?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Absolutely. And one thing we're really focused on is how do we do that at all levels? How are we making sure we're helping the teacher, admin at the school or the department head, however they're structured, as well as at the district level as well. So we have a bunch of different customer levels and they all have slightly different needs, but they're all trying to accomplish the same thing. So, how do we structure our products and different offerings in a way that we make sure we're hitting all of those different people and that we're adding the services and value that they need from Flynn outside of just buying product from us?

Andrew 7:54

And actually, what it made me think of was as educators, we always think about how are we going to differentiate to our students. And yet here you're talking about it on a global scale. Well, how do we fit the needs of all of our individual schools and districts based off where they are? And that's that's quite the undertaking. And well done, Flynn, since you're hitting your 50. It means you're doing something right.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I hear them screaming.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Someone must have won some socks.

Andrew 8:21

We're gonna bedazzle socks. You mentioned NSTA, obviously, and we're here at this conference. So why Flynn and NSTA? I I guess my question is what makes that partnership work?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, from our view, it all begins with the teachers, and NSTA is the best way and collection of teachers in the industry. So we want to help, I think one, selfishly sell more product to teachers, but two, less selfishly. We want to enable science learning and we see the importance of science education. And we want to make sure we're really focused on helping the organizations and the teachers the best way we can. And NSTA is a platform that allows us to do that, allows us our voice to reach as many teachers as possible, allows us to have conversation, allows us to get feedback from them at venues like this. So our partnership is really multidimensional with NSTA, and it's all about that feedback loop to making teachers' lives better and us learning from them as well as us offering them things that will help the teacher.

Andrew 9:18

Did you see how he added in that multi-dimensional? It was impressive. It was so smooth. It was planted, but it felt like you didn't plant it. Yeah, like it was always there.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

For the record, no notes in front of me. Oh no.

unknown 9:30

Yeah.

Andrew 9:32

I guess something else that I'm curious about now that we've kind of established all that that Flynn can do. I am curious about two things. One, safety services and what that might look like, because I think that's an ever-evolving issue in schools as we learn more.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

We're using some volatile chemicals, and there's got to be ways of handling them as well as disposing of them afterwards. Right? Because you can't just dump it down the dream. It's probably not we should be doing it.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Absolutely. So, I mean, to my point earlier on our heritage, it started really around safety. So, when I joined the organization, Flynn has been doing a lot of things for teachers to be safe in the classroom. So we had student contracts. Most students across the nation, when they take a middle school science class or high school chemistry assigning a contract that they're going to be safe in the lab, we had free courses that we've offered for years that are safety videos for teachers and students to take as well. As well as we have a kind of a proprietary, unique system of how you should store your chemicals for teachers. So they know how to dispose them, they know how to purchase them and store them in their closet. So with our catalog, the last hundred pages of it is a disposal guide. So it's I have an acid. What do I do with this acid? Because obviously I can't pull it, pour it down the drain. Is there a way to neutralize it so we can safely get rid of it? So that's the heritage the company was built on. And what was happening was our team of scientists was frequently getting called out to districts to do safety seminars or audits the closets of different schools. So we wanted to make that more of a product, productize that and systemize it so we can do it at scale. So what we've been focused on is how do we go find mostly retired high school chemistry teachers or retired teachers who are pretty into the safety realm? We've spun them up. We have them OSHA 30 trained so they understand safety requirements of the US governments as well as their experience in the classroom. And they're going out and doing these trainings at school. So training anywhere from 30 to 50 teachers within districts, as well as checking the closets to get those chemicals from 1942 out of the closet because we probably don't need those anymore.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

I probably shouldn't have this. That's a fun job for a retired science teacher. I feel like that's like kind of like a utopia. Like you get to play with chemicals and hang out with teachers, but still get to relax a bit.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yeah, they're pretty excited about it. And you get to, I think, to your point, interact with a lot of different teachers, travel kind of within your region. We've have them regionally. We call our biggest fans our Flynn fanatics. So it's not very difficult for us to find retired teachers who love Flynn and love making sure that classrooms can be safe so we can really keep doing more and more hands-on learning in the in the classroom and in the lab.

Andrew 12:12

I really love how you were talking about the disposal guide that you have, especially in our modern world where so many of us now will go to AI to say, what do I do with this? To not have to do that and just have here's a guy that's already been figured out. It's been proven over the test of time.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

It's right at your fingertips.

Andrew 12:32

And it's right at your fingertips.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

And you know it's good. AI might have some misconceptions or misdirection or whatever in there. Well, you know, this is a reputable company with a reputable guide. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Correct. Yeah. We use AI tremendous amount internally at Flynn, but it does get scary. It hallucinates on things. And when if you're having it right, your lab, it can do things that are a little scary. Right. Obviously, if I was a third grade teacher, I'd be using it all day. But as you get into the more dangerous middle school up and high school, it changes the dynamics a little bit because it can't hallucinate on something like that because something potentially bad could happen.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Right. Chemical clouds. Right. And finding out that it hallucinated it could be too late in the weird thing. What's that weird thing we have to like spray the eye goggle thing? My chemistry class had it, but thankfully we never had to use it. Like you have to spray water.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Oh, like an eye wash station? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Those things freak me out.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah.

Andrew 13:26

They're always covered with plastic and you have like a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

It's a little deep dive into my psyche. We can take this out.

Andrew 13:33

We dove into the safety part, which I think is huge and very important for being able to expose students to so many more things.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

And did you say that safety guide is in your it's in our catalog? Catalog, so it's access to anybody?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yep, access to anybody. That's amazing. Yep. And that that's the way we're headed. We can see where the industry is going with OpenSIAD and others. Like OER is coming. So we're trying to make as much of our resources available for teachers as possible to help them have an easier time in the classroom. Our view is if teachers are doing hands-on science, everybody's winning. So that's really one we we want to make that mission as easy as possible for them.

Andrew 14:08

Let's talk about that. I love that you brought up hands-on science, hands-on learning. What are you seeing? What are some of the trends, or where is Flynn kind of angling themselves? What are they looking at when it comes to hands-on learning?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, I you can see the trend continuing to pick up. I think you saw from NGSS call it 10 to 15 years ago in our numbers and our trends, where I think younger grades started, where it's more integrated curriculum and easier for them to get everything they need. Yeah. We're seeing that continue to move up the spectrum to now high school. I'd say middle school has been over the last three to five years. So now our view is high school is going to be the next one. The high school teacher has the strongest science knowledge in the science history, and they were trained for that. So it took a little while to get there. But now I think there's solutions coming from the entire market that can help them continue to have make their job a little bit easier and execute science that is entertaining and helps the students learn in their classroom. So that's kind of where we view is from a hands-on science perspective, we actually see it continue to grow and gain momentum. And I think our important piece at the younger levels is to make sure they're doing science every day. It's easy for science to be pushed to the side when you have math and reading that are being tested at an aggressive level. And then at the higher levels, how do we have solutions that help the experienced teacher? Because it's a little bit different of a solution.

Andrew 15:25

I love all of that. It sounds like for secondary, that obviously you're encouraging hands-on learning, but you're doing it in a way that you're saying, hey, look to us and we'll help you to be responsible with it, right? Safety first. Yep. How do we do it responsibly? Make sure that you have your best interests and your students' best interests in mind, everybody safe and protected. And for the younger grades, it's like a hey, pedal to the metal. Let's go. As much science as we can. Yeah. It's a win.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

And make it as easy as possible for that elementary teacher so that she can grab her box and do exactly what she needs to do and she doesn't have to do a lot of prep or a lot of thinking. And kids get an experience right away.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

That's amazing because when I taught science in Philadelphia at an elementary level, and I was a special. So I had K to five. I had all of them every day. So it was like a rotation of people. And the idea of being able to just pick something up and go would be mind-blowing and life-changing. So that's phenomenal that you do that for elementary levels. Because that's half the battle, maybe more than half the battle of getting your elementary class set up and ready to go. You might have 20 minutes every other day to do science. So being able to take something and like set it up and run with it is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, absolutely. And we have a lot of great curriculum partners that we do it on their behalf. So we're doing the kidding part with them, some with our brand and some without. So I do think the entire industry is really pushing forward and pushing science within the schools in that ecosystem. So we're excited to partner with those publishers and excited to kind of keep supporting hands-on learning, especially in the K-5 area where science, on average, I think science is taught less than half an hour a week in a classroom. It's totally and how do we make that more and more and continue to preach the importance of hands-on learning, the importance of science and how science helps drive some of those other things like math and reading skills.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

It really does. I wish more people would believe that.

Andrew 17:19

Mason, you've been there for a year. What is one of your favorite things about Flynn Scientific?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Oh, good question.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

I think it's a fun place. Like we get to serve a fun set of customers. We get to have fun. It's not a stuffy corporate environment. It's making teachers have fun and making sure teachers can help kids have fun. Like at the end of the day, science is the fun class. Like there's a lot of classes people dread. It's usually not science. Yeah. And we get to kind of bring that to life with everything we do from our marketing messages, our products we offer, and our attendance at trade shows like this one.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Your booth is consistently the one that is having lots of people excited, and we can see it from here. And there's a ton of people just sitting there doing super fun stuff and like having a lot of fun. So it's obvious that your company values the community as well as the products. It's awesome.

Andrew 18:07

And you're modeling hands-on learning. Clearly. That's what we see. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yeah, they're over there literally building bedazzling there.

Andrew 18:14

And as we said, you know, I know this wasn't the point, but the marketing of the loudness and the fun, it's stuck because we each were editing podcasts yesterday. I could always hear when it got loud, I'm like, that's Flynn.

unknown 18:24

That's Flynn. That's Flynn.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

It makes people want to go over and have more fun. I love it.

Andrew 18:29

They're having a good time. I didn't even see what they were doing. So it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Indianapolis, you're gonna have to move your booth further away from our book.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Well, either yeah, we might have to, yeah. Or we'll just be like, and pause for Flynn.

Andrew 18:42

Mason, thank you so much for coming on the show and and shining a light on Flynn Scientific. There's a lot to Flynn, and we're glad that we can hear more about it and that you could share us with our audience in STA voices. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. We love supporting all the different initiatives of N STA. So excited to support this one and excited to support everything going on here in Anaheim. It's been a great week. Thank you. Thanks.