[jasongnome]

This is a pet hate of mine and I was wondering what others think.

Firstly, some background, I've been a science teacher for nearly 20 years, before that I worked in a hospital microbiology lab so I am very aware of the need for genuine safety in the lab.

I make my students wear safety glasses if they're heating anything in an open beaker or tube, even water, or using any chemicals that are even vaguely hazardous.

However, I'm seeing a HUGE increase in safety instructions on worksheets etc prepared for schools with really SILLY safety warnings. I hate this, I think it's counter-productive. I want my students to know that if I give them a safety instruction it's because it's sensible. Stupid warnings, when they know something is safe is just like the story about the boy that cried wolf.

Here's an example from 2011.

http://sites.jmu.edu/chemdemo/2011/06/14/mm-color-wheel/

In this demo suitable for younger students, all you use are cold water, M&Ms and a plastic petri dish, yet it tells them to wear safety glasses.

Why?

Do they use safety glasses to drink water or eat M&Ms outside the lab? Of course not, so they KNOW this experiment isn't hazardous in any way whatsoever, they know there is nothing to protect their eyes from.

I don't buy the argument that they should be in the habit of ALWAYS wearing them in the lab either, that's a nonsense, they should be taught to properly assess safety. I don't make them wear saftey glasses to write with pens during a theory lesson, why would I make them when they're just dissolving M&Ms in water?

[P]

I agree regarding over the top warnings...  Some of the labels we have to put on things now at work are way over the top for the level of hazard....  as you said - it's like crying wolf...  when we DO get something that needs a lot of care the hazard warnings are not different from stuff that is pretty safe. It's gone so far as to be actually dangerous as people don't give the warnings as much respect anymore. EVERY safety data sheet for tins of paint has warnings all over it..  most of the time people ignore these...  but when they are actually genuine, people ignore them anyway as they assume it is just over kill on the safety notice to cover the manufacturer.

Regarding the water and M&Ms though I would argue that they should wear safety spec for ALL experiments in case of unknowns....  they re in a lab - a place with hazards...  what if the water was acid in an unlabelled beaker that someone left out and it reacted with the chocolate and spat up an acidy piece of chocolate into a kids eye. ;-) What if someone else in the lab has a spam whilst carrying acid and threw it across the room without warning. Their experiment might be safe, but is everything else around them in a lab environment?   
 

[Arkcon]

Everyone wears safety glasses in a lab at all times.

Its what you do.  Its the outfit.  It means you came in to do some work, and when you leave, you take them off and you're not ready for work, and no one should bother you in the hallway for "oh, just a quick thing in here."  Nope.  You took off the safety glasses, its now bathroom or snack time or flirting time or cel phone time or I just gotta fart time.  There is no overlap between these situations.  So the eye wear is part of the "uniform" for the task.

P has it correct in the second part, you don't know what's happening elsewhere in the lab, or what mistaken labels there are hiding other hazards. 

[Arkcon]

Don't kids love wearing safety glasses?  Isn't it fun to play scientist?  Don't you have a bunch of little white lab coats for them to wear?  Don't they love it?

Anyone?  Anyone? Bueler?  Anyone?

When I was in college, I used to bring the deli jackets from my high school job to class lab.  I felt so grown up.

OK, jasongnome:, here's a plan.  Everyone wears lab safety glasses, no one does without in the lab, and they don't swing them on their fingers, or wear them on the backs of their heads as a joke.

The students who help you setup get to wear a white coat the whole class.  (Don't tell the you got it from a delicatessen.)  You select them on the basis of their other work.  Completed written pre-labs, or their knowledge of the experiment to be done when verbally quizzed.  Those kids you want to encourage to advance.  As it stands, your original post is just going to give ammunition to the slacker kids who want to fool around even worse than not wearing safety glasses for the M&M experiment.

[Corribus]

In the case of junior scientists - they don't have the experience to do a proper risk assessment. M&Ms and water may not have any known hazards, but other experiments might. At what level of danger is it appropriate to not wear safety goggles or coats? Who makes that determination? It's best to get young scientists in the habit of wearing PPE whenever they are in the lab, regardless of what they think the danger level is.

And, as mentioned elsewhere, in a real laboratory there typically isn't just your own experiment going on. You may not be doing anything hazardous but the person next to you or behind you might be. Shrapnel flies, fumes diffuse, acid sprays, and so on. So again, I think there's a good lesson for students to always wear PPE no matter what they are doing. It will pay back later on when putting on eye wear and lab coat becomes automatic.

[jasongnome]

Regarding the water and M&Ms though I would argue that they should wear safety spec for ALL experiments in case of unknowns....  they re in a lab - a place with hazards...  what if the water was acid in an unlabelled beaker that someone left out and it reacted with the chocolate and spat up an acidy piece of chocolate into a kids eye. ;-) What if someone else in the lab has a spam whilst carrying acid and threw it across the room without warning. Their experiment might be safe, but is everything else around them in a lab environment?   
 

Firstly, for a simple experiment like this we'd be using water from the tap (fawcet for Americans), secondly, I wouldn't have other students in the room walking around with acid while I had younger students doing this!

If I DID have other experiments going on, then THAT would be the reason for the goggles, which would be made clear.

As for unknowns, I agree on that, my GCSE students (14-16yo) have to be able to identify an unknown salt. I expect their safety precautions to assume it's the most hazardous one out of the options.

[jasongnome]

Don't kids love wearing safety glasses?  Isn't it fun to play scientist?  Don't you have a bunch of little white lab coats for them to wear?  Don't they love it?

Anyone?  Anyone? Bueler?  Anyone?

When I was in college, I used to bring the deli jackets from my high school job to class lab.  I felt so grown up.

OK, jasongnome:, here's a plan.  Everyone wears lab safety glasses, no one does without in the lab, and they don't swing them on their fingers, or wear them on the backs of their heads as a joke.

The students who help you setup get to wear a white coat the whole class.  (Don't tell the you got it from a delicatessen.)  You select them on the basis of their other work.  Completed written pre-labs, or their knowledge of the experiment to be done when verbally quizzed.  Those kids you want to encourage to advance.  As it stands, your original post is just going to give ammunition to the slacker kids who want to fool around even worse than not wearing safety glasses for the M&M experiment.

OK, in the case of Labcoats, I work in the Med, trust me, the last thing they want to do when it's 40 degrees (100+ for those that still think in Farenheight) is wear labcoats! If they're needed, they wear them, they're also availabe if they want to.

But, with goggles, they're a novelty at first, but an uncomfortable novelty that soon wears off.

I don't buy the "slacker kids" argument either. I don't HAVE kids fooling around during practicals, they learn that lesson very early on. Besides, I think the "cry wolf" argument is more imprtant with those kids anyway. With younger kids, I stress WHY particular safety precautions are needed, that only works if you do it at the right time. By the time they're 12 we're having class discussions about what the safety should be rather than me just telling them. By Year 9 (12/13 year olds) I'm expecting them to tell me what safety precautions they're going to use before they're allowed to start.

On our GCSE (at 16) and A level (at 18) papers, pupils have questons on practical work, and they are expected to be able to give sensible and relevant safety precautions for the experiment for some of the marks. Irrelevent ones (like wearing safety glasses to handle M&Ms) would not get the mark. (Indeed, for this pracitcal, the correct answer would be "there are no real hazards").

[jasongnome]

In the case of junior scientists - they don't have the experience to do a proper risk assessment. M&Ms and water may not have any known hazards, but other experiments might. At what level of danger is it appropriate to not wear safety goggles or coats? Who makes that determination? It's best to get young scientists in the habit of wearing PPE whenever they are in the lab, regardless of what they think the danger level is.

And, as mentioned elsewhere, in a real laboratory there typically isn't just your own experiment going on. You may not be doing anything hazardous but the person next to you or behind you might be. Shrapnel flies, fumes diffuse, acid sprays, and so on. So again, I think there's a good lesson for students to always wear PPE no matter what they are doing. It will pay back later on when putting on eye wear and lab coat becomes automatic.

I worked for 10 years in a real laboratory (a hospital microbiology lab) and there are different areas for different hazards, you certainly wouldn't be wearing safety glasses everywhere (A labcoat that doesn't leave the lab except for cleaning, yes, but again that's for specific reasons, in this case to prevent spread of organisms to outside the lab and to protect those you are working with fro contamination).

I don't want safety precautions in my lab to be "automatic", I want them to be considered and appropriate. I want them actually thinking about safety, and I train them for that from their first time in the lab at age 11, when the first lesson is lab safety and why. Part of that lesson is to wear safety goggles when heating anything, or using anything that is, or may be (given the limits if what they know), harmful. That doesn't apply to M&Ms and tap water.

[jasongnome]

Everyone wears safety glasses in a lab at all times.

No, they don't, unless there is a reason to.

[billnotgatez]

Everyone wears safety glasses in a lab at all times.

No, they don't, unless there is a reason to.

@jasongnome
Can we assume you live in a country where there is little concern for litigation.

[jasongnome]

Everyone wears safety glasses in a lab at all times.

No, they don't, unless there is a reason to.

@jasongnome
Can we assume you live in a country where there is little concern for litigation.

No-one is going to win a litigation case because somebody isn't wearing safety glasses to mix M&Ms with water.

Besides which, it is blatantly to say everyone wears safety glasses in a lab at all times. It depends on what is going on. My lab is also my classroom, many lessons have no practical component. I'm not going to make them wear goggles to work from a textbook. Only if there's an actual risk.

Goggles aren't even worn "at all times" in professional labs, hospital labs nor University labs, unless there's a specific reason to because of the nature of the lab.

By the way I'm from the UK but now work in an International school.

[DrCMS]

Can we assume you live in a country where there is little concern for litigation.

You mean anywhere but the USA.  Although stupid frivolous cases are getting more common in Europe these days as well. 

[jasongnome]

Can we assume you live in a country where there is little concern for litigation.

You mean anywhere but the USA.  Although stupid frivolous cases are getting more common in Europe these days as well.

You wouldn't normally get cases that frivolous in Europe. Indeed, judges over here sometimes throw out frivolous cases very early in the proceedings as a waste of court time.

[P]

No, they don't, unless there is a reason to.

..  and their reason to do so is because they are in a laboratory where unpredictable things can happen....  A still could explode, someone doing a different experiment to your could fall and splash you etc.. 

Would you not wear a hard hat or steel capped boots and high vis jacket on a building site if you decided the task at hand was not that hazardous?  Of course you would - you are dressing for the environment NOT the procedure. Just because your current task is not that dangerous doesn't mean that someone else can't drop something off o roof onto you. It is good practice and pretty standard to ALWAYS wear safety specs in the lab.  Any uni lab will enforce the 'safety specs must be worn at all times in the lab' rule whatever the reason you go into the lab for...  there will even be racks of spare glasses for visitors. (Why should a visitor need glasses if they aren't doing a practical?)

[Corribus]

Goggles aren't even worn "at all times" in professional labs, hospital labs nor University labs, unless there's a specific reason to because of the nature of the lab.

Where I work (a professional labs), the safety plan calls for eye protection to be worn at all times when in any lab, regardless of what you're doing. That doesn't mean everyone does it, but it is the official rule. I wager most professional labs in the US have similar rules on paper (if nothing else, because of liability).