The DivCHED Safety Committee welcomes anyone at any experience level with an interest in safety education. Our vision is of education that embeds accurate chemical safety instruction at all educational levels, and our mission is to provide resources and strategies to chemical and science educators in order to prepare chemists and others to function safely while using chemicals. We typically meet in conjunction with the Fall and Spring meetings of the ACS. If you are interested in safety education and interested in getting involved, you are welcome to attend our committee meetings, or contact the Committee chair and he will try to connect you with appropriate people and projects.
Members of the Safety Committee work on a range of projects at the intersection of safety and education. These include collaborative projects with other Offices, Divisions, and Committees of the ACS, always with a focus on bringing the education perspective to safety issues, and the safety perspective to educational issues. We are excited to continue our collaborative efforts within the ACS Office of Safety Programs and our safety partners throughout the Society.
One of our current projects, in conjunction with the ACS Office of Safety Programs, the Committee on Chemical Safety and the Division of Chemical Health and Safety, is creating a professional development workshop for faculty. The workshop, Developing Instructional Safety Strategies in Undergraduate Chemistry Labs, will focus on teaching of chemical safety throughout the undergraduate chemistry curricula and how to establish a culture of safety within Chemistry Departments. We will be offering this new workshop on Friday, May 30th at 1:00 pm during MARM 2025 being hosted at Seton Hall University. Registration is now open at https://marm2025.com and will have a maximum of 25 participants.
Members of the committee have also been actively engaged in developing and field-testing a new ACS eBook. The text is Finster and Hills’s, 3rd edition of Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students. The launch of this FREE resource will take place on Monday, March 24th at 12:30 pm at the Expo Hall Theater Session at the San Diego National ACS meeting. You are invited to join us for this exciting event at learn how you can use this text in your laboratory setting.
Another resource that will be made available as part of this textbook is a series of worksheets for completing RAMP Analysis of your teaching labs. These forms were also designed and tested to be used in the classroom with students as they learn the steps necessary for developing and performing experiments safely.
The Safety Committee will be linking these resources to our revamped webpage later this year.
The Safety Committee welcomes safety symposia programming at national and regional meetings about chemical safety in education. We hosted a symposia at the 2024 BCCE on chemical safety in classroom and laboratory. If you are interested in organizing a safety symposia for a national or regional ACS meeting, please contact Steve Wietstock (swietsto@nd.edu). If there is something you have particular need for or interest in, please reach out to the Safety Committee to share your thoughts.