You would actually be surprised about safety in industry, for labs anyway. I’ve worked in academia and am currently in industry and I’m facing the same problems.
I have only one concern here- in addition to commitment, if we can fix accountability at every level, we can even make progress at a faster pace. Because, the accountability is clearly defined in the industry. Therefore, industry have a
better safety management system and safety culture.
We should also remember that chemistry is a diverse field, especially organic syntheses, where researchers manipulate various reactions and chemicals under different conditions, such as high-pressure and temperature, and highly toxic reagents
. The reactions/manipulations are rarely repeated, maybe only during precursor generation. Any deviation or using an impure substrate can cause problems. So, everything is not straight forward.
I am wary of "1001 Questions Every Science Educator Should Know." Any such collection, even if organized by topic, is not likely to be a coherent set of learning goals. For such a resource I suggest the ACS booklet,
Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Academic Institutions, (https://institute.acs.org/content/dam/pldp/center/lab-safety/publications/acs-safety-guidelines-academic.pdf).
This was thoughtfully constructed by experts in the field. (It is, of course focused on chemistry - not "science educators" at large.) The ACS Committee on Professional Training also supports the general ideas that are more specifically listed in this booklet
in their ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs (Layout
1 (acs.org) ).
We do not lack information about should be taught regarding safety. What we lack is a serious commitment teaching safety at the undergraduate level by many institutions. That said, my impression is that the "state of the art" is better
in 2022 than it was in 2012 and it will continue to improve. The ACS website about safety is replete with resources. What we are trying to do is change a culture; this is slow. Patience is advised, but stagnation should not be tolerated. Progress is often
made at individual institutions when a "champion for safety" emerges. Press on.
David C. Finster
Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry
Wittenberg University
*** This email was sent from a non-Wittenberg email service ***
Oh, I am looking forward to this.
Lab Manager, Cambridge CARES
________________________________________
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2022 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] [EXTERNAL] [DCHAS-L] Safety awareness
The Laboratory Safety Institute is also creating a book on this topic called 1001 Questions Every Science Educator Should Know. It's still being developed, and I'm not sure when it will be published.
I am a co-editor for this project, if anyone is interested in submitting questions please let me know.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2022 9:59 PM
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [DCHAS-L] Safety awareness
A retired ACS colleague asked me if there were examples of "validated 'Safety Questionnaires' to evaluate the level of understanding of laboratory safety for educators" available. We have discussed this and related on this list. I am
putting together a list of such documents for the colleague.
Please send me via the list or privately what you are willing to share.
I do not know the application this is wanted for, but knowing this colleague, it will be valuable and interesting.
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