Is High School Science too Safe?

As I reflect on my 5 years of teaching Chemistry in public high schools in this country, I cannot forget the common theme of the first raw questions students ask me as they come to class the first day of school. I have been asked this question many times “Mr. Saha……..so are we going to do some cool Chemistry experiments like blow things up ?”

My stock answer has always been to assure them that we will be doing cool experiments that will teach us fascinating concepts but no we are not going to blow things up in the classroom.

However last week it hit me. When I was in high school, our chemistry experiments were more exciting though they had quite a bit of risk factor. I remember pipetting acids with my mouth! I remember us picking up a small bottle of mercury and marveling how heavy it was. I remember us sneaking small bits of metallic sodium and dropping them in the sink !!

I am not condoning unsafe practices in the chemistry laboratory. But it appears that currently chemistry kits and the laboratory curriculum has been scrubbed to the extreme under the umbrella of lab safety, OSHA and legal liabilities to the point that experiments have become mainly boring. I think this has partly been responsible for the sharp drop in students wanting to pursue advanced degrees in natural sciences like Chemistry.

Interestingly, there is a wonderful video on PBS Wired Science that explores this fascinating topic.

To view this fascinating video on the original site, please click on the link below:

DANGEROUS SCIENCE