One of the most transformative and significant contributions to chemical safety education has been a recent shift to integrate the risk management concept into laboratory safety practices. A prescriptive, rule-based safety culture is being transformed into an empowering, risk-based safety culture and the result is that chemistry students learn laboratory safety by recognizing hazards and then implementing the most effective safety controls. The ACS chemical safety recommendation is that all laboratory activities begin by identifying hazards and assessing risks, considering the methods needed to minimize those risks, and preparing for emergencies. After several years of effort, a series of six safety videos is now available for use in introductory college chemistry courses. Funded by a generous donor, Jim Blizzard, these videos will be available free of charge on the ACS You Tube Chemical Safety Channel. The videos are based on the risk management system, RAMP (Recognize hazards, Assess risk, Minimize risk, and Prepare for emergencies). In the videos, students are introduced to hazard recognition and risk assessment and the videos provide a resource for chemistry instructors to integrate risk management into their chemistry courses. This approach encourages chemistry instructors to foster a positive safety culture in the chemistry curriculum by engaging students to be proactive in risk assessment and management and to take responsibility for their own safety. Integrating risk-based safety into undergraduate education serves as a launching point and nurtures students who will be committed to a safe, ethical, responsible, and sustainable practice of chemistry. An Instructor’s Guide will be available on the ACS Center for Lab Safety website: https://institute.acs.org/lab-safety.html.

Risk-based safety education fosters sustainable chemistry education

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.