The DivCHED Safety Committee meets at each National Meeting, seeking to pursue its vision of education that embeds accurate chemical safety instruction at all educational levels and implement its mission to provide resources and strategies to chemical and science educators in order to prepare chemists and others to function safely while using chemicals. Anyone interested in safety education and interested in getting involved is welcome to attend our committee meetings, held in conjunction with National ACS Meetings, or contact the Committee co-chairs and we will try to connect you with appropriate people and projects.
The Safety Committee is working on a range of projects at the intersection of safety and education, although some items have been slowed down due to changes in meeting structures and workloads due to COVID-19. However, various members are engaged in collaborative project with other components of the ACS, and we would like to draw your attention to a couple of those.
As the new academic year gets underway, think about new ways you might engage your students with safety instruction. The six videos prepared for high schools (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLG7h7fPoH8IZ6i2rfDK0zVoompXayRL_) will be joined – hopefully soon – by a set of videos prepared for higher education audiences. The Foundations of Chemical Safety and Risk Management for Chemistry Students (https://learning.acs.org/course/index.php?categoryid=43) which is free for ACS members, and is designed for second year chemistry students, is still available; a new product for new introductory lab students and intended for integration with learning management systems should shortly be available from ACS Publications. More resources are under development or consideration, so check the ACS Safety website often to see what is new. If there is something you have particular need or interest in, please reach out to the Safety Committee to share your thoughts.
The Safety Committee welcomes the idea of symposia at national and regional meetings about safety in education. If you are interested in organizing such symposia at the Spring 2022 ACS meeting or a symposium or workshop at the 2022 BCCE please contact Sue Wiediger (swiedig@siue.edu) or Dave Finster (dfinster@wittenberg.edu) if interested. Some of our members have also presented at regional meetings and we are open to sharing some of those materials if you are developing programming for your area.
ACS Committee on Chemical Safety is constructing a Task Force to study DEIR issues in the CH&S arena. They will seek some non-CCS personnel for this project. Contact Dave Finster (dfinster@wittenberg.edu) if interested.