Rainbows and tornados

Rainbows and tornados

Rainbows and tornados And the injury total just keeps climbing. On 3 September 2014 another incident at a science demonstration involving methanol was...

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Rainbows and tornados And the injury total just keeps climbing. On 3 September 2014 another incident at a science demonstration involving methanol was reported, injuring 13 people, mostly children. This time, a ‘‘tornado’’ demonstration performed at a science museum in Reno, Nevada. Like catastrophic ‘‘Rainbow’’ demonstrations of the past, methanol vapors found an ignition source and caused a flash fire. Despite repeated warnings from the safety community, apparently the education community has not gotten the message that working with flammable materials, on a bench top, with ignition sources, and without shielding is a dangerous combination that can result

1871-5532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jchas.2014.09.004

in serious injury to both the demonstrator and the audience. As Scott Adam’s Dogbert character might say, ‘‘This just gripes my wagger.’’ Worse, apart from attempting to influence the mindset of educators, there is precious little else that can be done except to watch injury total from these demonstrations rise. The safety community simply cannot fix the root-cause of the problem without the cooperation of the educational community. I hear a lot of talk about incidents during demonstrations, but I am not seeing a lot of action taken to prevent them. I know that there are a number of JCHAS readers who are also chemical and science educators at both the secondary and post-secondary levels and I have a strong request of them: please get (more) involved in safety at your level, especially with demonstrations and laboratory experiments. The two

communities simply must get ahead of these incidents in the quickest way possible. As I see it, that way is positive and active involvement at the local level. What do rainbows and tornados have in common? Apparently one metric is ‘‘injury total.’’ It takes more than ‘‘caring’’ about science demonstration safety: The communities must actively engage and take action to review, critique, and revise them for audience and demonstrator safety. Wishing the incidents would go away will not make it so.

Harry J. Elston

ß Division of Chemical Health and Safety of the American Chemical Society Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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