When a chemist or chemistry teacher enters a classroom with demonstration materials, the immediate response is “What are we going to blow up today?”  Not the response that elicits a learning experience related to effective demonstrations. Many YouTube videos are no better.  An October 2014 safety alert was issued from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board called "Key Lessons for Preventing Incidents from Flammable Chemicals in Educational Demonstrations" ( http://www.csb.gov/csb-releases-key-lessons-for-preventing-incidents-from-flammable-chemicals-in-educational-demonstrations-in-wake-of-several-serious-methanol-accidents-that-injured-children-and-adults/ )  The alert was based on three serious incidents in Nevada, Colorado, and Illinois where children were burned while observing laboratory demonstrations involving flammable liquid methanol.  The ACS Division of Chemical Education, NSTA, and Flinn Scientific, Inc. have published minimum safety guidelines for demonstrators which have been in place for many years.  These guidelines do not, however, address a number of steps that demonstrators must take to insure safety to both the demonstrator and their audience nor do they encourage effective learning through demonstrations.  This paper will look at some practices that can lead to safer and more effective chemical demonstrations.

Chemical demonstrations: The good, the bad, the ugly

251st National Meeting (2016)

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