Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:24:16 -0400
Reply-To: List Moderator <ecgrants**At_Symbol_Here**UVM.EDU>
Sender: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: List Moderator <ecgrants**At_Symbol_Here**UVM.EDU>
Subject: Re: 2 Re: [DCHAS-L] Glove use in academic teaching labs

From: "Latimer, Lee" 
Date: August 11, 2009 9:08:22 PM EDT
Subject: RE: [DCHAS-L] 2 Re: [DCHAS-L] Glove use in academic teaching  

labs

Rebecca and Pat,

This is a worthwhile discussion.  While indeed early experiments do  
use common household chemicals like salt for their components, the  
student is building skills as well as understanding.  I would like to  

see them respect rather than fear what they work with and encounter.   

I believe that building good techniques will allow them to fear their  

materials less and handle them with respectful confidence.  A part of  

good lab technique is good PPE.  While the choice of latex vs nitrile  

gloves can come with understanding of the materials to be encountered,  

to wear gloves/Z87 safety glasses/labcoats or not is a very different  

judgment to me.

I won=92t argue that salt solutions for density determinations and  
similar materials need gloves.  It is the technique development and  
habits that are at the root of the desire on my part.  As they move on  

to cleansers in the home, strippers for furniture, oil changes and  
garden treatments, many will make a judgment about the need for gloves  

and glasses that will be based on their experience.  I hope that when  

they are in a lab that they know what is standard for lab situations  
and have practiced it since they first took labs so that when they  
become my colleagues, I know they have safety ingrained to their  
thoughts and I won=92t have to take them to a hospital because they  
didn=92t think they needed PPE.

I find it amazing that we have PH.D. synthetic chemists coming to work  

in industrial labs who think from the lack of enforcement PPE in their  

academic training that personal glasses are safety glasses, that lab  
coats are a maybe item and that gloves are only for when something is  

hot, cold or sticky.  So I=92m in favor of improving the traditions of  

teaching technique, and reminding people that is an experiment because  

we don=92t know the outcome absolutely (Murphy=92s Law does happen).

We appreciate the efforts you make in teaching understanding, judgment  

and technique.

Lee

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