Demystify: 

Descriptive chemistry was indeed disappearing from high school chem--and from college General Chemistry. More to our point--when I introduced my chemical safety and health course in 1976, a not-infrequent response on end-of-semester course evaluation forms was something like "I'm a senior chem major. How come this is the first I'm hearing about any of this stuff?"
Let us hope and continue to work toward a day when that sad situation is no longer.

Thanks for the interesting stats Ralph.

Steve Stepenuck, ret.

On 7/25/22, 7:54 AM, "ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety on behalf of Ralph Stuart" wrote:

> If the chemistry doesn't work then there is no point in "safety" - the work oughtn't even be performed.

The extraction story describes an important â??safetyâ?? challenge - transferring techniques between the educational lab and the research setting requires a careful thought and risk assessment, which is likely to be beyond the scope of an undergraduateâ??s skill set. That is one reason that undergraduates can benefit from systematic safety education as part of their science experience, but learning that they will need continuing lab safety education and discussion is an important take away from the undergraduate years.

>At very least, HS science should provide the student with the basic safety ideas to survive in the modern world.

My experience with HS chemistry in the 1970â??s is that â??descriptive chemistryâ?? such as those examples was leaving the high school curriculum in favor of atomic theory and other more general concepts. Hazmat information was not part of the high school curriculum then. According to the data at
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=97
70% of high school students take a chemistry course (up from 50% in 1990), but Iâ??d be surprised if this classwork includes much hazardous materials information.

- Ralph

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

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