Donna

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From: DCHAS-L Discussion List on behalf of Ralph Stuart
Sent: Mon 3/30/2009 9:30 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Best Practices for Students in Industrial Labs

A DCHAS-L member who preferred to ask this question anonymously asked 
me to post this...

- Ralph

Our industrial laboratory has previously allowed high school students 
(under age 18) to shadow researchers in the laboratory.  The parents 
must sign a release form to allow emergency medical treatment and 
disclose any prescription medications the student is currently 
taking.  There is a lengthy and serious safety presentation with the 
students and their mentors prior to entering the lab.  The students 
are allowed to observe low risk experiments, e.g., room temperature 
reactions, pipeting non-BBP materials into multi-well plates, use of 
microscopes and surface analysis equipment and HPLC's, etc.  The 
students are not allowed into high hazard areas such as hazardous drug 
labs or to observe experiments that involve pyrophoric reagents 
(hydrides, etc.).  The mentor must accompany the student in the 
laboratory 100% of the time.

We have had a recent request from management to allow a high school 
student (< 18 years old) to actually conduct experiments in our 
research laboratory during the summer.  Do any industrial labs allow 
high school students to participate in a summer research project?  
What are the limitations?  Do you have any guidelines to share?

We have considered having a local university allow the student to work 
in their lab and our company sponsor the project.