We know that the science lab is the most dangerous room on a school campus. That’s why lab safety has always been a “non-negotiable” for every science class I have taught. Yes, we know that accidents may happen from time to time. But more often than not, they can be prevented and the likelihood of a student getting seriously injured can be greatly reduced. Now I’ll be honest. I don’t cover lab safety on the first day of class. Safety is important, but it’s not going to get my students excited for the semester. Instead, we cover lab safety during the first few weeks of class before we use any lab equipment.
Begin With The Lab Safety Rules (But Don’t Stop There)
Does your school already have a document with the safety rules clearly explained for you to review with your students? If not, there’s no need to worry. There are many excellent lab safety contracts available for you to use. Two resources that you can use are from Flinn Scientific and Carolina Biological Supply Company. I would encourage you to read over both and use whichever one is the best fit for your classroom. If neither meets your needs, you could use them as a starting reference as you write your own and make any needed additions or edits.
Collect A Signed Lab Safety Contract
After we have gone over safety contract, I ask my students to bring back their signed contract to the next class. I also use this assignment as a requirement before I let students participate in future labs. I would never want a student getting injured during a lab and this is a good way to prevent that from happening. This is also one of the few assignments I accept late for full credit. If only partial credit is offered some students won’t value turning it in late.
Have Students Create A Lab Safety Poster
Depending on the length of your class periods, you may be able to cover the lab safety rules and have students design their lab safety posters during the same day. If not, you can make this assignment last for the amount of time you have set aside. I know there are some great resources out there with grading rubrics, but I tend to keep this activity pretty informal. I will write 8-12 different lab safety poster ideas or scenarios on index cards (depending on how many groups I will have in the class), and then I have each group pick a topic. They are then responsible for making a safety poster on butcher paper that we will be displaying in class. This lab safety activity is one of the first group assignments which allows me to see what changes I want to make to lab tables before we get into future labs.
Check For Understanding With A Lab Safety Quiz
The first assessment I give every year to my classes is my lab safety quiz. I give this quiz the day after we have discussed the do’s and don’ts of lab safety, we have identified the location of all of our lab safety items in the classroom, and students have made their lab safety posters (which I have displayed in the room while they are taking their quiz). The quiz is a combination of fill in the blank and true/false questions summarizing what we have covered in class.
After the quiz I have my students self-grade the quiz and complete their test corrections. This is the only quiz where I give 100% credit for the test corrections, but this serves two purposes. First, I want the students to absolutely learn the answers to the questions they missed. I think lab safety is THAT important. Secondly, I want the students to buy in to working hard in my class and by making sure they all get 100% on their first quiz, I am helping them down the road to a strong grade in my class (nothing can be more demoralizing for a teenager to start the year with an F in a class). If you would like a FREE copy of my lab safety quiz just enter your email in the form at the bottom of this post and I will send a copy to your inbox!
Final Thoughts
Lab safety doesn’t have to be boring in your class. Make it interactive and get your students participating in demonstrating they know what are safe choices versus high risk choices in the lab. At the end of the year your students will remember all the great labs you did with them. And they will be thankful you made their scene class memorable.
Until next time….
Mark
Science & PE With Mr. C
