Employer’s Safety Awareness Expectations for New Hires, as identified by the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Chemical Safety, include that undergraduates should develop a basic understanding of hazardous waste characterization. While this is for chemistry majors and thus could be addressed in an upper level majors-only course, introducing hazardous waste topics in introductory chemistry courses could improve chemical safety literacy for a much broader group of students. This project introduced an activity related to hazardous waste to first semester general chemistry students to assess the impact of a simple intervention. A second activity related to safety data sheets was used as a comparison activity; sections were randomly selected for which activity was done first. Participants completed surveys at the beginning and end of the semester as well as between the two activities. Additional data was collected from records of the volume of waste produced and occasional observations of student waste disposal practices. Analysis of these data seeks to determine whether providing more information about the consequences of improper disposal of hazardous waste impacts student behavior.

Investigating hazardous waste practices in the general chemistry laboratory

255th National Meeting (2018)

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