Veering slightly off course, but as safety is a core value of ACS and safety is a fundamental part of all laboratory activity, do any of the other ACS exams contain any safety questions?
A guiding principle of the Exams Institute is that the committee members (~12-16 for each exam) decide what the content of each exam will be. There are "easy" and "challenging" features of this process. Most
of the time, an exam seeks to "test what is taught." If a committee strays foo far from this, then faculty won't buy/use the exam and it becomes useless. (The Exams Institute director also points out that even though committee members are volunteers there
is a large cost to producing exams and not recouping some of that in sales is counterproductive.) This produces an insidious "conservative" feedback cycle: books are written with content that faculty want to teach; faculty teach (to some degree) what is
tested (by ACS exams, in part), and the exams test what is in books. Breaking into this feedback loop is not easy, and not without risk. The (three) Exam directors that worked with did not discourage evolution of exam content but also advised caution. To
your question: If there are 1-2 "safety advocates" on the committee, the exam may have 1-2 safety questions. The role of the committee chair is important too. And, on every exam committee that I was part it would have been EASY to write an exam with 50%
more questions. When I chaired committees we would start with a LONG list of (truly) reasonable items to test, and then, not without pain, start to triage the list towards the target number. There are many areas of content for all exams. Could your write
a gen chem exam with no question about balancing equations? I don't think so. You can ask, and answer, similar questions many times over. So, then, how many questions about safety? One or two, maybe. Then, how to pick from 10-15 equally good safety questions!
It gets idiosyncratic at that point, and the safety questions (if present) feel like "token" items. This is hard for a gen chem exam, and even harder for (advanced) inorganic. Bottom line: I suspect that some ACS exams have safety questions and some do
not.
Some time ago, we used an ACS final exam in an organic chemistry course that I taught and I don't recall seeing any practical questions regarding laboratory operations or safety. Hopefully, this has changed over the years. I could see
the organic chemists wanting to "save" the questions for reactions, problem solving etc. but the narrow focus I recall disturbs me. Safety is not a separate subject and it is not an "add on" to a laboratory.
As noted above the competition for questions is vexing. My experience was that committee members would
not argue against safety but also found it easy to argue for particular areas of "regular" content.
If it hasn't been done already, it would be straightforward to adapt the test to use organic reactivity knowledge with respect to RAMP without "sacrificing" questions. For example, "why would this reaction not be a good way to synthesize
the product?" with answers such as "would give the wrong diastereomer", "elimination would be more likely", "the reactants are incompatible", etc. Even with that though, I would maintain that a couple "pure" questions on lab techniques as well as safety would
enhance the exams. Again, if it hasn't been done yet.
I think that this has not been done. "Straightforward"? Maybe, but maybe not. RAMP is being promoted by the ACS but the degree to which it may find its way to an examÉ well, this will take time. Testing a
concept that us not widely taught is risky for reasons described above. My fantasy... : (almost) every chapter in an organic textbook should have a section devoted to the reactivity (in terms of safety!) of a class of compounds AND a section on toxicity.
And, RAMP is in the textbook, not just the lab manual.
If someone suggests that this isn't fair to the students because the course materials don't include such considerations, then I would suggest the instructors are the problem, not a test that includes safety or practical laboratory questions.
I understand that the demands of the ACS accreditation require an incredible fast pace and including all of the requirements in a course is already a daunting task, but if the educational outcome came down to my students *knowing* (without looking anything
up) not to mix nitric acid and organics versus memorizing which set of conditions gives anti-Markovnikov addition of HBr to an alkene, I know which one I wouldn't lose sleep over. And which student I'd want in my lab.
Yes, instructors are always part of the problem, and part of the solution. When I used to do safety workshops with faculty, I would start with questions likely: How many students have died because they could
not split the d orbitals in an octahedral field, or calculated the number of theoretical plates in a column, orÉ( add you favorite ESSENTIAL content from any course)? Answer: zero. Then, "how many student have died because they did not have adequate safety
instruction?" Answer: not zero. Teaching safety poorly has consequences. We are getting better, and I think that will continue. Onward, including ACS exam questions.
As many of you know, the Examinations Institute of the ACS Division of Chemical Education produces a wide variety
of "ACS exams" for use at the high school and undergraduate levels. (Exams | ACS Exams (uwm.edu)). The current (2019) Chemical Heath
and Safety exam was prepared by a committee of academic colleagues with experience in safety and exam-writing; the experience of this group provides "validation". The exam items are also field-tested. For more
information about the exam see:
Writing the 2019 ACS Exam for Chemical Health and Safety, Journal of Chemical Education 2021 98 (1), 7-8; DOI:
10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00124
The exam is designed for undergraduate use, and I believe that only faculty can purchase it for use "in the classroom". For any "other situation" I suggest contacting the Examinations
Institute director through: acsexams**At_Symbol_Here**examsinstitute.org.
Chemistry Professor Emeritus
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A retired ACS colleague asked me if there were examples of "validated 'Safety Questionnaires' to evaluate the level of understanding of laboratory safety for educators" available. We have discussed this and
related on this list. I am putting together a list of such documents for the colleague.
Please send me via the list or privately what you are willing to share.
I do not know the application this is wanted for, but knowing this colleague, it will be valuable and interesting.
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