Are you worried about the safety of labs? I’ve taught 40 kiddos using gas jets. Terrifying. There was always one lab group I had to police closely. (By closely I mean sit at the lab station, threaten them, and critique their lab techniques sharply.) What can you do to keep labs safe?
1. Review Lab Safety. Establish consequences. My kiddos must wear safety glasses during any lab. Period. If I catch you removing your safety glasses, you clean all of the lab stations for every group. Kiddos hate to clean. My teens have worn their safety glasses home.
2. Stick with the labs in the textbook. These labs are written for kiddos doing labs at home. Wear your safety glasses!
3. Read and follow directions exactly. Don’t skip or substitute steps. Do the lab as written.
4. Go microscale. Microscale uses drops instead of milliliters or liters of chemicals. The pipettes hold a max of three milliliters. Even more dangerous chemicals, such as HCl or NaOH are safer when dealing with a few drops. Smaller amounts are safer—even with the one kiddo who insists on mixing all of the solutions or squirts a little on his lab partner.
5. Dilute all chemicals. Initially, all of the labs use highly diluted solutions. If the lab calls for 0.1 M chemicals, mine are 0.01 M. I very seldom use 1 M concentrations at all.
Maintain strict lab procedures. Use the least amount of chemicals possible. Follow directions explicitly. Whenever possible, use household chemicals (not ammonia and bleach). Skip any lab which requires lye or ammonium nitrate. Let’s pray for safe labs and kiddos who follow directions.
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