It is irresponsible for an y faculty member in an educational lab to allow students to experiment with a ny chemical without proper personal protective equipment. As the faculty membe r in the laboratory you are responsible for every students’ personal safet y in that lab and I have a responsibility to make sure that the faculty are complying and that all safety equipment is in working order. Compliance of faculty to the safety regulations is one of the largest issues that occur i n many academic laboratories. If you train these students that gloves are onl y needed when a “real hazardous chemical” is being used then the incidence of accidents increases with each lab that these students attend a fter that point of instruction.

Creating a safe environmen t for faculty to teach, students to learn, and staff to work should come first an d it is an unsafe environment for my staff and the students when faculty allow safety rules to slide because they don’t deem the lab to be dangerous enough to warrant gloves, goggles and proper attire. An unfortunate part of my job has become pointing out to faculty, who know good and well, the safety rules of all laboratories, and dealing with the injuries that happen as a r esult of the instruction received from the faculty member(s). An ounce of prevent ion………

Danyelle

I comple tely agree with this "educator's" point of view.  Many of our experiments in general chemistry are using non-hazardous materials (yes, of course you can drown in or die from ingesting too much salt water, but ...) .

Pat Redden

-----Original Message-----
From: DCHAS-L Discussion List on behalf of List Moderator
Sent: Tue 8/11/2009 7:28 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] 2 Re: [DCHAS-L] Glove use in academic teaching labs< br>
From:   r.calhoun**At_Symbol_Here**moreheadstate.edu
Subject:        RE: [DCHAS-L] 2 Re: [DCHAS-L] Glove use in academic teaching 
labs
Date:   August 10, 2009 4:12:11 PM EDT

 >From an industrial standpoint (i.e. employers), you will help us< br> tremendously if those in education require gloves for all lab operations
short of keyboards.

> From an educator's point of view, requiring gloves for ALL lab  > operations only teaches students that ALL chemicals are dangerous.  
> It does not teach the student to evaluate risk; to think about what 
> they are doing and what precautions they need to take.  In many ways 
> it fosters an atmosphere of carelessness and disregard for real < br> > dangers.  If I make my students wear gloves when they determine the 
> density of salt water, they'll underestimate the danger when I make 
> them wear gloves for experiments where there is real risk.  Yes, it 
> is easier to make hard and fast rules - "Do This", even if i t's not 
> really appropriate - than to look at each individual situation. But 
> if anyone ever told you teaching was easy, they lied.

Kay Calhoun