Australia's Science Forum

What were they using?

Hexane, stopped before they were going to heat a mixture of Bunsen.

You know I said "walk away", what I think I should have said is "run away"!

Me againnnnnnnnnnnn! anybody have a teacher doing chemistry practicals with only a few children not entire class after school hours. When rest of the department has gone home for the day/weekend. Being a little proactive instead of reactive lol.


Well it's going to be reactive, have passed on further. I just don't have the confidence in some. It's the weekend

macca wrote:Me againnnnnnnnnnnn! anybody have a teacher doing chemistry practicals with only a few children not entire class after school hours. When rest of the department has gone home for the day/weekend. Being a little proactive instead of reactive lol.


Well it's going to be reactive, have passed on further. I just don't have the confidence in some. It's the weekend

I would say, unless authorised by the school, that this would void all insurance and get the teacher into all sorts of trouble should something go wrong. One of the first safety rules of any lab work is "never work alone" In this instance, the students don't count.

I'd be going to the HT and if they dismiss your concerns, your WHS committee or rep.

Merilyn1 wrote:If the teacher plans on using the chemical outside of the recommended usage (i.e. 7 to 12, 11 to 12 etc) they need to consider the hazards and take appropriate steps to reduce the risk. They could make these notes in the box where they sign off. Riskassess has a provision for a supervisor/HT to sign off on the risk assessment at the bottom, which should be done in these situations.
Given they were using the chemical with no PPE and no fume cupboard, they obviously have no understanding of chemical safety. I would bring it to the attention of your HT. Hopefully it wasn't the HT!

As the lab assistant you can make notes in the certification by lab technician box - make it the higher risk than the teacher chose and notate why ... this way you have covered your self - if they ask you to do any less then I would not consider this honest and pray that there isnt an incident cause the documentation is the first thing they will pull ...

The risk assessment we do on Riskassess in the Lab Tech box, is intended for our own direct tasks in getting the equipment/chemicals organised. It is not designed for us to assess the risk of the prac - only the teacher conducting the prac can do the risk assessment for the prac. This is advice from Phillip Crisp and does make logical sense.
When completing the lab tech box, I include anything I need to do to get the equipment ready and how to deal with it when it is returned, so comment of how the chemical to be disposed of, how agar plates are to be sterilised, are the sorts of things I will make note of. I generate my own risk assessments for preparing chemicals. That way when doing the RA for an individual prac, I'm only considering the safety of getting the bottle from a shelf, or may need to re-fill dropper bottles, but I don't have to go into detail on preparing the chemical as it has already been dealt with on another RA.
Hope this helps