DCHAS-L Archives, Sep 08 2016 - Re: [DCHAS-L] Philadelphia posters available

Greetings All,

I thought I would chime in again about the Guidelines.

The Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Secondary Schools and the Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Academic Institutions are currently available for download at www.acs.org/safety Hard copies can also be requested by sending a message to safety**At_Symbol_Here**acs.org.

Are they applicable for non-majors also? Yes! Definitely! The Guidelines are a starting point for what chemical safety knowledge and skills would be expected of students regardless of their major. The Guidelines are organized around four principles of safety represented by the mnemonic R.A.M.P. -- Recognize the hazard, Assess the risk of the hazard, Minimize the risk of the hazard, and Prepare for emergencies..

Thinking about chemical safety in this manner helps both the instructor and the student focus on the underlying chemical principles of a potential hazard and take appropriate actions to either avoid or minimize the risks from that hazard. This also helps build critical thinking and problem solving skills by applying chemical theories and principles to actual laboratory activities and experiences. As a student's chemical knowledge increases, more complex topics, such as reaction kinetics and thermodynamics, can be incorporated. This is safety education.

As a long-time faculty member myself, I found that at times I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I wanted my students to know and do. I needed students to be "safe" and not injure themselves or others. But what does this really mean? I am finding the Guidelines and the RAMP concept have helped me and my colleagues to reassess how we teach safety principles in all of our courses, including support courses.

Another item just released by the CCS that would likely be of interest to the engineering students might be the Job Hazard Assessment Tool (JHA). www.acs.org/hazardassessment This tool is an extension of the document "Identifying and Evaluating Hazards in Research Laboratories" and will continue to help build critical thinking and problem solving skills. It can be used in any academic or industrial laboratory. The JHA tool will help users identify potential chemical and physical hazards and implement corrective and preventative actions, including training, with the goal of reducing accidents, incidents and near-misses. I could see this tool being used as a pre-lab assignment for undergraduate lab classes.

In my opinion, the over-arching goals of these CCS publications are to make our laboratory environments safer and to give our students, even those not pursuing a degree in chemistry, the tools with which to be safe while in our labs, in the workplace, and at home.

Thank you for taking time to read this commercial.

Best Regards,

Kirk Hunter

Co-Chair

CCS Task Force for Safety Education Guidelines (TFSEG)

Department Chair
Chemical/Environment Laboratory Technology and
Pharmacy Technician Program
Texas State Technical College Waco
3801 Campus Drive
Waco, Texas 76705
(254) 867-4859 (o)
email: kirk.hunter**At_Symbol_Here**tstc.edu

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org> wrote:

I thought I would let the list know that I have collected almost all of the presentations from the Philadelphia technical sessions on the DCHAS web site. Of particular interest of some of the posters I have added over the last few days, including discussions of safety education, safety ethics and safety perception which provide interesting perspectives on the topics we discuss on the list.

I also thought I would mention (since I don't believe anyone has brought this to the attention of the list yet) that at the Philadelphia meeting, the Committee on Chemical Safety released its Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Secondary Schools and Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Academic Institutions. These documents outline the safety content that high school and undergraduate students respectively should be aware of at the end of their chemistry educations.

Another newly available resource are Division of Chemical Education=E2=80™s Minimum Safety Guidelines for Chemical Demonstrations which were approved in Philadelphia and are described at
http://dchas.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wilhelm-Revising-Demo-Safety-Guidelines.pdf
The guidelines themselves should be on the CHED Safety Committee's web site soon.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart
secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
Secretary
Division of Chemical Health and Safety
American Chemical Society

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