Lab Safety in School

From LoveToKnow Safety

Lab safety in school is an issue for both students and teachers. Whether you are doing simple lab experiments in middle school or more difficult experiments in high school, everyone needs to be safety conscious.

Student Lab Safety in School

Students can be easily injured in school laboratories when they don’t follow directions. Most mistakes occur when students aren’t paying attention when the teacher is discussing and showing experiments at the front of the classroom.

The rules in school labs are as follows:

Read the experiment before you begin it, and then read it again.
Never eat or drink in the lab.
Never use mouth suction to extract liquids from lab equipment.
Do not touch your face or other exposed skin after touching chemicals.
Pull back any loose hair from your face before beginning experiments.
Never force glass tubes into rubber stoppers because of the risk of breakage.
Wear lab aprons and gloves when required.
Always wear safety goggles.
Use caution when using burners or heating plates in the lab.
No horseplay is ever allowed in a lab.
Be sure to turn off any equipment when you are done using it.
Always wipe surfaces clean after conducting experiments.

Classroom Safety Equipment

Students and teachers may follow all of the safety rules, but they need the necessary tools to assist them in case of an accident. Recommended safety measures that every school laboratory should have include:

Emergency eye wash and shower station
Goggles for every person in the classroom
Protective aprons should be used when needed
Protective gloves for students
Exhaust hoods in experiment areas
Safety shields and screens in the experiment areas
Fire blankets and fire extinguishers
Heat safety items- tongs, mittens, and gloves for handling cold and hot experiments
A bucket of 90 percent sand and 10 percent vermiculite that is properly labeled and has a secure lid

Classroom Safety Tips

Teachers are ultimately responsible for the students that use their labs. Due to increasing enrollments in some schools, science teachers have had to devise methods to control these changing classroom environments. The following are tips that can be used to keep students in check when they are in the laboratory.

Make students do a pre-lab. This includes reading all of the materials the day before they do the experiment. They must then be able to write a brief summary of the lab and list the safety precautions for the experiment.
Safety should always count. Make a checklist that has to be met before the students are allowed to do their experiment. Assign points for equipment set up and necessary safety gear. Deduct points if anything is omitted, such as two points for not having goggles.
Have students create their own safety posters as a graded activity at the beginning of the school year. Hang these posters in the lab so they can be viewed throughout the school year.
Students can write on their aprons the rules of the lab so they are a constant reminder when they are conducting experiments.
Teachers should give themselves leeway when assessing the possible success in a lab. If there are too many students using potentially hazardous materials, perhaps the experiment should be omitted. A large class size can have a negative impact on safety in a lab environment.

Science can be Fun

One thing many students look forward to is getting to use the lab, but science experiments can be exciting as well as dangerous. Students and teachers need to work together to create a safe learning environment. Parents and administrators can help with lab safety in schools by providing the necessary tools that their children and teachers need. The following resources can help everyone in this endeavor:

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