New Safety Video Collection Added to Multimedia Library

This past week AACT added a new safety video collection to our multimedia library. The American Chemical Society, which is the world’s largest scientific society, produced the videos. ACS is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences.

The new collection includes six videos; five for student use in order to learn about different aspects of lab safety and one to help guide teachers through the RAMP approach to assessing hazards:

• Video 1: Safety Mindset

The chemistry lab is an amazing place! Through experiments and demonstrations your high school students have been discovering that chemistry is more than just a collection of facts and formulas—it’s a way of observing and understanding the very real properties of matter all around them. However, the lab can also be a dangerous place. Contrary to what your students might have seen in films and TV, safety is a core value of chemistry—it is essential to everything they do in the lab. It begins with their mindset, the attitudes and beliefs they bring to class with them every day. Use this video to introduce your students to elements of safe importance of safety mindset in the chemistry lab.

• Video 2: Safety Data Sheet (SDS)

Preparation and planning are key to working in the chemistry lab. To be prepared, your students must understand the hazards of any chemicals they will be working with. The place to find that information is the Safety Data Sheet or SDS. The SDS provides detailed information about the properties of a chemical, its hazards, and how to protect yourself from those hazards. Use this video, to guide your students through 16 sections of the SDS for isopropyl alcohol to demonstrate importance of SDS information.

• Video 3: How to Dress for the Lab? And what about Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)?

Wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) is one of the main ways for you and your students to stay protected from injury in the lab. PPE includes things like goggles, gloves, lab coats or aprons. These are designed to protect eyes, hands and skin, as well as clothing, from exposure to chemicals. PPE is the most obvious way of preventing contact with chemicals—but it is not the first line of defense. Use these video to teach your students that before they put on any PPE, why they should dress properly for lab.

• Video 4: Preparing for Emergencies

There is an old saying that you should always plan for the best, but prepare for the worst. This is good advice in the lab as well. Use this video to teach your students about two lab emergencies that carry a high risk of injury—spills and fires. The videos describes concrete steps to prevent these emergencies and goes over some of the safety equipment used to deal with them.

• Video 5: RAMP (For Students)

Use this video to teach your students a simple yet powerful tool for protecting you and your classmates in the lab. The tool is called RAMP, which stands for: Recognize hazards; Assess risks; Minimize risks and Prepare for emergencies.

• Video 6: RAMP (For Teachers)

As a teacher, there are steps you can take to make sure your students are as safe as possible while exploring and experimenting in the lab. In this video, we discuss some ideas to help you to set up a safe lab experiment. We use RAMP, the acronym for lab safety. RAMP stands for Recognize hazards; Assess risks; Minimize risks and Prepare for emergencies. RAMP is a simple yet powerful tool to help you prepare for and safely carry out any lab activity with your students.

In addition to these new videos, links to related safety teaching resources and to the AACT Safety Page is included on the page.