A DCHAS-L member who preferred to ask this question anonymously asked me to post this... - Ralph Our industrial laboratory has previously allowed high school students (under age 18) to shadow researchers in the laboratory. The parents must sign a release form to allow emergency medical treatment and disclose any prescription medications the student is currently taking. There is a lengthy and serious safety presentation with the students and their mentors prior to entering the lab. The students are allowed to observe low risk experiments, e.g., room temperature reactions, pipeting non-BBP materials into multi-well plates, use of microscopes and surface analysis equipment and HPLC's, etc. The students are not allowed into high hazard areas such as hazardous drug labs or to observe experiments that involve pyrophoric reagents (hydrides, etc.). The mentor must accompany the student in the laboratory 100% of the time. We have had a recent request from management to allow a high school student (< 18 years old) to actually conduct experiments in our research laboratory during the summer. Do any industrial labs allow high school students to participate in a summer research project? What are the limitations? Do you have any guidelines to share? We have considered having a local university allow the student to work in their lab and our company sponsor the project.
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