CHAPTER 1
Strategies for Teaching Lab Safety

What Is It?

Lab safety includes the behavioral expectations, rules, and procedures that students follow during an interactive lab.

Why We Like It

During the first week of school, teachers can focus on getting to know their students. In addition, they can provide opportunities for their students to learn about each other, the teacher, and the classroom. See Chapter 14: Strategies for Cultural Responsiveness for resources that help you to get to know your students.

We've found that lab safety is the logical first unit in a science class. Students need to know the teacher's expectations and have time to practice safe behavior prior to doing science labs. Lab safety, when implemented correctly, reduces the risk of injury to the teacher and their students while also minimizing damage to lab equipment. Most important of all, lab safety can enhance student engagement and learning in science.

Supporting Research

Every science class should be teeming with lab and fieldwork that requires students to behave in specific ways to avoid injury. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) declares that "inherent in conducting science activities, however, is the potential for injury" (NSTA, 2015). Students need to learn how to proactively avoid injury as well as how to appropriately react if an accident occurs.

Teaching students to follow lab safety rules provides them with an opportunity to practice taking personal responsibility. Some teachers believe punitive measures, such as receiving an F on a quiz, is an effective way to teach personal responsibility. However, simply receiving a bad grade does not teach students how to behave in a more responsible manner. Students are more likely to learn how to manage their behavior and attitudes when they receive guidance from an adult who takes the time to encourage students to reflect on their actions (Wormeli, 2016). Instruction on lab safety is a meaningful way to show students the bigger picture of a situation and, thus, enhance personal responsibility.

Skills for Intentional Scholars/NGSS Standards

The activities in this chapter require students to practice thinking critically as they apply their newly learned lab safety rules and procedures. Simply memorizing the rules won't suffice, especially in the case of an emergency. Students will not have time to read the lab safety rules when an emergency arises. They must know the rules well enough in order to instinctively react appropriately in a dangerous situation.

Application

There are multiple ways to introduce and teach lab safety in science classrooms. We will highlight the use of a contract and safety rule story, as well as list several other interactive methods that we use to reinforce appropriate lab behavior.

SCIENCE SAFETY CONTRACT

We use a Science Safety Contract to introduce the rules. It is important to read every rule with students before having them sign the bottom. Students then take the contract home to obtain a parent signature. Figure 1.1: Science Safety Contract English is an example of a lab safety form that can be adapted for all grade levels. A Spanish version of the contract is available in Figure 1.2: Science Safety Contract Spanish.

LAB SAFETY RULES STORY

This activity gives students an opportunity to interact with their new learning about lab safety. It can also be used as a formative assessment to determine how well students understand lab safety rules in context. See Chapter 17: Strategies for Assessing Student Learning for additional formative assessment resources.

To personalize the lesson for our students, we replace the student names in Figure 1.3: Identifying Broken Lab Safety Rules with our current students' names. Every class period receives a unique copy that includes four of the students from the respective class. We find that students tend to be more engaged when they find their names in the story, which helps us build a positive rapport with them. Figure 1.4: Identifying Broken Lab Safety Rules-Answer Key provides the answers, assuming a teacher is using Figure 1.1: Science Safety Contract.

OTHER INTERACTIVE WAYS TO TEACH LAB SAFETY

There are many fun and interactive ways to teach lab safety that require students to do more than memorize a list of rules. Here are some ideas for activities that students can do to demonstrate their understanding of lab safety:

• Draw a cartoon showing what happens when lab safety rules aren't followed.
• Produce a video explaining why it's important to follow lab safety rules.
• Write and act out a skit that demonstrates the lab safety rules. Have small groups create two skits each-one showing how to correctly follow lab rules and the other showing an example of not following them. Not only can students have fun with this juxtaposition, but showing "bad" examples is also an effective learning and teaching strategy (Taylor, Wirth, Olvina, & Alvero, 2016).
• Analyze a "lab scene." Before class begins, set up a lab scenario where several lab rules were broken and someone has fallen victim to the violations. To make this interactive, the victim can be a parent or student volunteer. Include props such as a broken beaker, a Bunsen burner that's been left unattended, and water on the floor. Students then analyze the scene to determine which rules were violated and what changes need to be made in the lab to avoid future accidents. Crime scene tape can be added and is available at most local dollar stores.
• Each student creates a poster that focuses on one rule; some rules may be duplicated, depending on class size. Students share their posters during a gallery walk during which they provide constructive ideas and feedback to their peers by applying a sticky note to other students' posters. (This is always the first student work we display, and it's available for students to add to their portfolios for parent/teacher conferences.)

Students must pass a test demonstrating their knowledge of lab safety rules and procedures. Figure 1.5: Science Lab Safety Quiz is our true/false test.

DIFFERENTIATION FOR DIVERSE LEARNERS

All lab safety activities can be modified by allowing students to have more time or to work with a partner.

When we watch online lab safety videos in class, English language learners and hearing-impaired students can benefit from closed captioning. In addition, consider playing the videos at a slower speed to make them more accessible to all.

Learning lab safety is usually easier for older students because they've experienced most, if not all of the rules, in previous classrooms. Younger students may require more instruction and practice. We sometimes use a reading strategy called Cloze, which is discussed in depth in Chapter 8: Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension. Cloze activities provide students with the lab safety rules contract with keywords missing. Students are challenged to use context clues and background knowledge to guess the word that best fits in the blank. For example, using Figure 1.1: Science Safety Contract, rule number 1 would read like this:

• Wear lab safety ____________ when chemicals are used or something is being heated.

Students then work independently or in pairs to determine that the blank should be filled with the word "goggles." After providing ample time for students to fill each blank, we then provide them with a word bank so they can begin to check the validity of their answers. The word bank can also be shared at the beginning of the activity with students who may need extra scaffolding.

Differentiation can also occur when assessing students.

Instead of taking a traditional summative test, students can prove they've learned a concept using other formats. We provide a variety of options for students to review and ask them to select one. When students are given choices, they can perceive classroom activities as more important because they feel their choice is going to impact their grade so they must make a good one (Marzano, n.d.). Also, giving students choices can enhance a sense of autonomy and increase motivation (Ferlazzo, 2015). In our experience, students who are provided options also tend to complete more work.

Students can choose from any of the following to demonstrate their new learning:

• Take an oral test (particularly for students who have reading comprehension challenges).
• Create a lab safety hero. The student chooses five lab safety rules they think are the most important. The hero they create then "explains" why these five rules are the most important, including the consequences of not following these rules. After giving the hero a catchy name, the student then draws and colors a picture of his/her hero. Teachers can allow students the option of choosing how to present their heroes (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi, a skit, or a poster).
• Find an online article dated within the last year where someone didn't follow lab safety rules. Students write a summary of the event including who, what, when, where, why, and how with an emphasis on the specific lab safety rule(s) that was broken and the consequence(s) that followed. Searching "lab accidents" followed by the year will...