The theme of the April issue of the Journal of Chemical Education (JCE), is Placing Chemistry in a World Context. Environmental science, green chemistry, waste management and service learning are few of the topics included in the issue. An overarching theme that should be embodied in not just these topics, but also every chemistry topic, is safety.
Every chemical lab activity or demonstration carries some level of hazard and risk. That said, when instructors use best practices, there should never be an injury. Unfortunately, accidents do occur. We have seen them in the news. They happen in research laboratories, at universities, in K-12 classrooms and at outreach events. It has never been more important to revisit our standards for demonstration and lab safety. The April issue of JCE includes two manuscripts that offer safety resources for educators.
The ACS Division of Chemical Education Safety Committee has worked to update the 1988 “Minimum Safety Guidelines for Chemical Demonstrations”. The revision emphasizes risk-based hazard assessment. You can find the new revision, “Safety Guidelines for Chemical Demonstrations” in the Supporting Information to the JCE commentary (that is freely available without a subscription), Revising the Division of Chemical Education Safety Guidelines for Chemical Demonstrations (Cesa, Finster, Samuella, Sigmann and Wilhelm). This document can also be found on the Division of Chemical Education website (scroll down the safety committee page to the title). The document was intentionally designed to fit on the front and back of one piece of paper. You may want to print it on cardstock and keep it handy in your classroom or workspace and refer to it when considering a lab or demonstration. The digital version offers several links that offer even more guidance. I hope you will share it with other teachers in your area.
If you use the search bar on ChemEd X, you can find many posts related to "safety". I have included a short list of those posts here.
Mary Saecker’s post JCE 95.04 April 2018 Issue Highlights summarizes the issue for you. She has also mined the JCE archives to uncover even more articles related to the issues theme. The cover is related to a service learning chemistry project that is discussed in Quantifying Sucralose in a Water-Treatment Wetlands: Service-Learning in the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory.
Do you have a past JCE activity or article on safety or another topic included in the April issue that you are willing to share? Start by submitting a contribution form, explaining you would like to contribute to the Especially JCE column. Then, put your thoughts together in a blog post. Questions? Contact us using the ChemEd X contact form.