Karnaugh map for 3 variables
If we look at the top left corner, where a=0 and c=0, we see that s follows b. This gives us a partial result of s=b. Moving down to the bottom left corner, we see that s is inverted when a=1. This is the XOR operation, and gives us s=a^b. Moving over to the right side, we see that the output is inverted when c=1. This gives us our final result of s=a^b^c.