Safety should not be in the hands of individual teachers, however wonderful some of them may be, to incorporate into lessons bit by bit as their individual experience and temperament dictate.  

Safety is a profession and a discipline all by its damn self.  There needs to be a required course in which all of the basic principles and regulatory issues are taught.  No one should graduate without knowing the physical principles related to fire, explosion, basic toxicology, how to read an SDS and a proper label, the applicable OSHA regulations, and so on. 

And no 1 credit survey course either.  It needs to be tough, organized, detailed, and specific to the hazards and equipment used in the type of chemistry the student is pursuing.

Monona

-----Original Message-----
From: Christina Dillard <cdillard**At_Symbol_Here**MOS.ORG>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Sent: Tue, Jul 2, 2019 11:50 am
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Beacon HS student burned in botched chemistry experiment awarded nearly $60M

I'm not sure I can hang my hat on "hopeful". I was in the thick of trying to make change happen in my more than 13 years with the Laboratory Safety Institute (LSI). But there needs to be a culture shift in how we teach science. Safety has to be an integral part of all science education. I continue the good fight here at the Museum and most of our educators do a great job of infusing safety into their fun science lessons; I always tell them, you don't know who is in that audience- a teacher, an administrator, a future teacher or just a student that now has the confidence to speak up about the "cool" safety precautions that they saw and now ask why aren't we doing the same. We aren't perfect by a long shot, but I'm proud of our staff.

 

There are so many opportunities to infuse safety into our lessons and to encourage risk assessments at all academic levels. After all- Safety is Elementary! There has to be a way to get this message to a bigger broader audience and shift the culture of "Whoa! That was a close call" to "Wait! What are the precautions?"

I feel we need the help of the cool faces of science like Adam Savage, Steve Spangler, and Steve Nye to make safety a priority, to demonstrate and talk about the importance of safety. And I think someone here mentioned petitioning YouTube to take down old experiments that only reinforce the "wrong" way to use alcohols in demonstrations.

 

But I am not hopeful that this lawsuit will make a change. Until I figure out the "magic" to getting this message out I will talk to anyone who will listen about the pain Alonzo Yanes suffered, the bravery of Priest Rivera to be seen on the news in his bandages warning others about experiments involving the ignition of alcohol vapors and Calais Webber who still hasn't put the whole tragic moment behind her, but fights the good fight and talks about what happened to her.

 

Best,

Christina

 

Christina Dillard | Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Program Manager

Museum of Science  | Facilities Dept.  |  One  Science Park  |  Boston, MA 02114-1099

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