Jim:

I recognize that and it is a part of why you and I are both still active as we look at 80 and beyond

 

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Stay healthy and prosper

 

NEAL LANGERMAN, Ph.D.

ADVANCED CHEMICAL SAFETY, Inc. (Retired)

5340 Caminito Cachorro

SAN DIEGO CA 92105

+1 (619) 990-4908

www.chemical-safety.com 

 

From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU> On Behalf Of James Kaufman
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2022 3:37 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Safety awareness

 

This has been LSI's mission since 1977.

James A. Kaufman, Ph.D.
Founder, LSI
508-574-6264

 

On Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:20 PM <neal**At_Symbol_Here**chemical-safety.com> wrote:

While I agree with Ralph's comments, I think every person graduating high school should understand why you do not throw gasoline on a fire. At very least, HS science should provide the student with the basic safety ideas to survive in the modern world.  Without using the language, they should appreciate flashback and they should understand why you do not mix chemicals such as bleach and acid.  Knowledge needed to survive.

GHS is not a survival skill. Knowledge of ignition of vapors is.

Neal

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stay healthy and prosper

NEAL LANGERMAN, Ph.D.
ADVANCED CHEMICAL SAFETY, Inc. (Retired)
5340 Caminito Cachorro
SAN DIEGO CA 92105
+1 (619) 990-4908
www.chemical-safety.com

-----Original Message-----
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU> On Behalf Of Ralph Stuart
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2022 8:48 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Safety awareness

> 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. 

My thanks to Rob for posing his follow up question and Dave for his response. I found it a very interesting description of the sociology of how sciences are defined for teaching purposes.

Dave's quote above reminds me of a comment my son made after he started taking graduate level math classes to prepare for PhD economics work. I asked him what he learned there that he didn't get in undergrad math classes such as those I had taken as an engineering undergrad.

His response was "I learned that everything that teach you in high school is a lie."  The idea he was pointint to is that less than 10% of the the high school (and undergrad) audiences are likely to ever explore either math or chemistry beyond the course being taken and educating those audiences on the messy details of real life that arise when you use either math or chemistry techniques seriously (i.e. on a professional basis) doesn't fit either into the textbooks or the grading systems we have now.

I think that this explains the ongoing challenge the safety community faces in impacting the chemistry education - by definition safety issues are loose ends of the "scientific process" as described in the textbooks. Systems like GHS, the regulatory environment, and anecdotal stories about specific events (Wetterhahn, UCLA, Texas Tech) could fit into the textbook / testing system, but I'm not sure that professional and ethical aspects of lab safety can show up in the classroom. I suspect that daily experience of lab decision-making is necessary before students can relate to the big ideas we are evolving when it comes to lab safety (these big ideas could include RAMP, professional judgment, regulatory liability).

This doesn't mean to me that we should address lab safety in the undergrad curriculum, but we should also expect to revisit the topic on a regular basis through out a chemist's career. And to return to the Neal's original question, that applies to the chemistry educator's career as well...

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org

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