Team:CIDEB-UANL Mexico/safety labsafetycards

Objective: Safety Team did this activity in order to accomplish two targets: (1) to make people understand the importance of safety in the lab and (2) to help students keep in mind the correct way to work on laboratory practices.

Description: Safety also involves all the activities performed in the laboratory and how to work on them to avoid accidents or injuries in each of the practices performed, not just for iGEM contestants, but also for general students. For this reason, Safety Team from iGEM CIDEB 2014 designed and distributed some cards that include some general information about how people must work on the laboratory and perform successfully their practices. The structure for each card was about 12cm x 7cm, including eight recommendations about how students should follow and perform their practices, including images and laboratory design.

These cards were delivered by Safety team before an Experimental Science Lab’s practice from students of second semester. The team told them the importance of safety while performing lab work, encourage them to work safer and proceed to give them the cards.

The information contained in the cards was the following:

1.      Remember to always use a lab coat, long pants, closed shoes and, in case of the girls, tied hair. It’s very important to avoid accidents with every type of reactive you work with.

2.      Whenever dangerous substances are being worked with it’s necessary to use gloves and protective lenses. Skin and eyes are very sensitive.

3.      While doing a practice you should be conscious of what you’re doing. Follow instructions and if you have any doubt, ask before acting.

4.      If you observe that something unusual is happening, don’t hesitate to communicate it to the teacher or to a lab assistant.

5.      Remember that some materials are heat conductors. If you heat something in the Bunsen burner, wait until it cools down and take it carefully in order to avoid skin burns.

6.      Hazardous materials are never thrown away in the drainage.

7.      Never… Never add water to an acid. When preparing a solution like that, the water goes first, followed by the acid.

8.      Whenever you finish a practice remember to leave your workplace and the material clean and in order.

Design:

The cards had the following design:

Results:

The students showed interest in the cards and we observed that all of them read them before the laboratory practice began, that was a good thing because they would keep the information given in mind while working.

Since they kept the cards and with them the information, they could became aware of safety not just for now, but for all of the future lab practices in their lives.