Account setup for computer lab

Why not just enable the guest account? When a guest logs out, the guest home folder is reset. Otherwise there are many other ways to skin a cat, such as creating groups that only specific users have access to.

ps: it sounds like Simple Finder would also meet your goal.

 

I too think that using the Simple Finder is probably the best way of achieving your probable goal. But I will throw out one more possibility:

You could mark the folders you don't want them exploring in as hidden. With a little creativity people can still explore with the Finder (assuming you don't use simple finder), and if they have access to Terminal.app they can still explore there. I don't really understand why you are trying to curtail exploring, since just viewing the contents of those folders is not going to be harmful to anyone (it is making changes that you should be guarding against, and that should already be taken care of).

Oh... and you could change the permissions of the folder to remove the read access for users. As long as they still have execute permissions on the folder they should be able to get at the files within, but will not be able to search folders. Do not use recursive changes for this, since you don't want to kill the executables in there, pick a level and do that. Creative people will still be able to get through this by navigating directly to the folders they want inside you exclusion zone, but it does get rid of the casual browser.