I agree that there is a woeful lack of training. Most demonstrations books do have lists of materials needed and a set of instructions. Most online videos offer little or no instructions and, often, just a list of materials and/or a narration from the experimenter. They contain little or no safety guidelines or outdated safety information. Chemicals are not always measured. There is often no clean-up or disposal information. Non-informed viewers will try to duplicate "cool" demos, sometimes scaling up the quantities, for the "WOW!" factor, and not understanding that bigger is not better. When asked about any problems, the response is "Accidents don't happen to me" or "We never had a problem." In my opinion, one accident where someone is injured or facilities are damaged, is too many.

Science education for teachers has been sorely lacking.  Most teacher education programs only require two semesters of science courses.  Prospective teachers will usually take whatever courses they believe are easy, usually biology or earth science courses.  They may also take a science methods course, which may or may not be taught by science faculty.  The problem with the science courses is that they are "standard" courses, not normally attuned to the needs of the future teacher.  Lab work for these courses usually consist of "standard" or "routine" experiments, again, not attuned to future teacher needs.  When I taught at a small college in the 1990s, where 70% of the students were prospective elementary or middle school teachers, I tried to convince the education department to require four one-semester courses in chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science-astronomy designed for the teachers' future needs.  The response was always "There's not enough time."  I did modify and teach the science methods course with hands-on, mostly chemistry, activities. Safety was stressed and was a part of every activity. All the activities were designed to be safe and were assembled in boxes, with complete instructions, so that the students could take a box and work through each activity, with proper supervision. They were also required to develop an activity as part of the course, again, with safety being stressed.  One result of that course was that most of the boxed activities would be taken by the students to their Wednesday field service schools to use in the classroom with excellent feedback for the field service teachers.

I also taught the Institute for Chemical Education (ICE) demonstration course for 14 years (1984-1997) to elementary through high school teachers. All activities were pre-prepared and "boxed" for teacher use.  Each participant was required to develop an activity for presentation to their group. Safety was a part of all activities. 

While I believe that all teachers teaching science should be required to have safety training, however, safety should be an integral part of each and every activity so that any teacher, or individual, knows what they are working with.  Added notes such as "Don't do this (at home)!" are woefully inadequate for any activity.

David

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  David A. Katz             
  Chemist, Educator, Expert Demonstrator, Science Communicator, and  Consultant
  Programs and workshops for teachers, schools, museums, and the public
  5003 Canby Dr. * Wilmington, DE 19808-1102 *  USA
   email: dakatz45**At_Symbol_Here**msn.com
           Visit my web site:  http://www.chymist.com
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