Australia's Science Forum

I'm new to using riskassess and into my second year of being a labbie. I'm just wondering about assessing the level of risk as low, medium, high or extreme for each experiment. It seems that it's a little bit subjective. Does anyone use the standards or risk management guidelines (suggested by the riskassessment program? Apparently you have to purchase these. Some feedback would be great, thanks.

The way I understand it, it IS subjective. The teacher has to consider his particular class of students and determine the risk level for them. The risk is always higher when you have vision or hearing impaired students, or particularly difficult behaviour kids, for example. Then the teacher has to look at ways to mitigate that risk.

As far as you the labbie, is concerned, you have to decide the level of risk to you, when preparing and cleaning up the prac. I tend to call any prac containing chemicals a medium risk at the least. And tick safety glasses, gloves and labcoat, and fumehood when appropriate.

thanks

annettegascoigne wrote:I'm new to using riskassess and into my second year of being a labbie. I'm just wondering about assessing the level of risk as low, medium, high or extreme for each experiment. It seems that it's a little bit subjective. Does anyone use the standards or risk management guidelines (suggested by the riskassessment program? Apparently you have to purchase these. Some feedback would be great, thanks.

Risk assessment is rather subjective. However, there is a link to a useful risk matrix PDF in the signature sections. (HERE)

A Summary
Basically you assess the consequences and frequency and map it onto a simply grid to determine the risk level.

Consequences:
• Level 1 (Minor): first-aid treatment within the school,
• Level 2 (Moderate): treatment by a doctor (general practitioner), and
• Level 3 (Severe): immediate hospitalisation
Occurances:
• Level 1: (Likely) known to commonly occur, not unexpected in the class,
• Level 2: (Unlikely) uncommon, rare, but sufficiently frequent to have been witnessed in class by self or a known person, and
• Level 3: (VeryUnlikely) very rare, have heard of it happening, may possibly have been witnessed in class by self or a known person

Risk:
• Low risk is: all Minor consequences, or VeryUnlikely Moderate consequences. Take basic safety precautions.
• Medium risk is: Unlikely Moderate consequences. Take extra care.
• High risk is: VeryUnlikely Severe consequences. Only proceed with extreme caution.
• Extreme risk is: Likely Moderate consequences, Likely-to-Unlikely Severe consequences. Just do not do.

I'm sure I've thrown in my 2 cents worth somewhere else, but to add to what Graham said, a basic rule of thumb (after having read all the guidelines) is:

Using bunsens, or blades always equates to a medium risk, to be mitigated by "teacher gives clear instructions, blah blah".

Similarly, if you have a special needs kid in your class, then experiments are almost always medium risk, where the mitigation becomes something along the lines of "Specific Instructions to be given to Special Needs student" OR "Special Needs student to have teacher aide/lab tech/trained monkey to assist". (if only we had more trained monkeys!) Anyway, the point of that is to make the teacher acknowledge that there is in fact a special needs kid in their class (examples in my school are a Downs kid, and a Vision Impaired kid), and that they have considered their safety. That way, if anything happens, God forbid, then there is written proof that the teacher considered the situation beforehand. AND, it's good practice for the teacher!

Frankly, Low Risk experiments seem limited to watching wheat seeds germinate, dissolving salt in water in plastic containers, watching paint dry, and other fascinating pasttimes!

ALso do remember if you are a DEC NSW school, you DO NOT have to do risk assesments. You only need to keep in the guide lines of CSIS Chemical Safety in Schools.