Appendix 12B: Introductory Considerations for Laboratory Safety and Management

Providing for Safety Instruction

An essential element of good laboratory management is providing for safety instruction. Every agricultural laboratory has many dangerous areas and situations. It is crucial that students learn to work in their environment safely not only for their immediate welfare, but so that they develop the essential safety habits needed for their future employment in the industry. From the standpoint of teachers, there are at least three compelling reasons for making sure that their students learn to work safely in the laboratory. First of all, teachers care about the individual students and certainly would not want to see one injured. Second, teachers want to get students totally prepared for a successful future. The third reason teachers must be sure students receive superb safety instruction is to protect their own welfare. The legal climate is such that teachers who do not provide satisfactory safety instruction and supervision may be found liable for failure to do so. Thus, teachers must be sure they are adequately covered by reliable professional liability insurance.

The first thing to remember about safety instruction is that safety is largely a question of attitude. Thus, teachers must use instructional practices that impact not only the psychomotor and cognitive domains but also impact favorably on the affective domain.

The cornerstone for safety instruction is thorough classroom instruction. Students must be taught the specific safety practices that will be expected and required in the laboratory in question. Students must also be taught specific safety practices that pertain to each area of the lab and to specific pieces of equipment and tools.

Structured classroom instruction with complete note taking is essential. Teachers should use a variety of techniques that appeal to all five senses when teaching safety principles and practices. Another effective technique is to bring in people from agribusiness and industry who can relate vivid experiences they have had or seen and to offer industry specifications on how safety is handled in real-life settings.

Teachers also need to demonstrate and role-model the specifics of safe psychomotor operations. Finally, students must show “proficiency” on a general safety test, as well as a specific test for each category of tools and equipment, chemicals and dangerous agents, and specific learning centers. These tests then must be kept on file as evidence that formal instruction has taken place and that each student has demonstrated mastery. There are several good commercial sources of safety units, tests, and audiovisual aids. Then, throughout the duration of the course, students must be reminded of safety. As new problems are discussed, teachers can reiterate previous cautions.

Once in the laboratory, there needs to be an effective, safety-conscious environment. Teachers must use state and national recommendations for color-coding, display safety posters and exhibits (many good materials are available through each state’s safety agencies), and guarantee that all guards and other safety devices on equipment meet state standards. The laboratory must always be neatly arranged, clean, and well lit.

Each day and throughout each laboratory period students need to be reminded of safety. This can be done by the teacher, by the laboratory supervisor, and by the safety engineer if one is used. Another important practice is for teachers to set the example by wearing safe clothing and safety glasses and following the same rules that they have set forth for their students.

The final element of a good safety program is for the teacher and assigned students to conduct safety inspections daily. If tools and equipment are found to be in anything other than top operating condition, appropriate restorative maintenance must be provided. All in all, the goal of a good program of safety instruction is for students to develop a mind set for safety and practice daily habits of working safely.

Managing Tools and Equipment

Teachers must be sure to manage all tools and equipment, including computers. Without a viable management system for maintaining and upgrading tools and equipment, there will not be a laboratory to manage. Tools, equipment, hardware, and software are very expensive, and it is the teacher who is ultimately responsible for keeping them in good condition or updated. Also, if tools, equipment, and computers are in disrepair, broken, or missing, the students will be unable to stay productively involved during laboratory, the consequences of which can be readily predicted.

If students do not learn to properly use and care for tools, equipment, hardware, or software as a part of their instruction, then they will encounter serious problems when they enter the work force. In essence, students need to develop acceptable equipment use habits. The dollars involved in industry demand such an attitude.

Many teachers prefer to store or locate tools of all kinds on a display board near the location where they will be used. Larger tools and pieces of portable equipment should be kept in a logical storage area and checked in and out using a system that everyone understands. Wherever tools are kept, they should be kept clean and ready for the function for which they were intended.

This means that every student who uses a tool or piece of equipment returns it cleaned and ready to use to the place where they found it. At the close of every laboratory period, the supervisor and teacher must be certain that everything is clean and in its place and, in the case of shared computers, certain that no personal files are left on hard drives. Otherwise, problems mount.

Teachers must also provide students with instruction on refitting tools, upgrading software packages, and fine-tuning equipment. For example, students need to learn to sharpen hoes, shovels, chisels, chain saw chains, and other tools. They must learn to replace glass or plastic on the green house, readjust gate hinges in the school barns, sharpen clippers used for dog grooming, and re-adhere PVC pipe on aquaculture tanks. This is an important part of preparation for work and is vital to the successful management of tools and equipment.

Procedures for Efficiently Starting and Ending a Laboratory Period

Beginning the laboratory period. If teachers begin laboratories in a businesslike manner, then this mood is apt to prevail for the rest of the laboratory period. However, if teachers begin laboratories in a disorganized and confused manner, then the entire laboratory period is apt to be tainted by that approach and attitude throughout the session.

The first thing to be accomplished in getting the laboratory started is to achieve the proper mental set. The mental set that is desired is that “we’re here to work, we’ll accomplish much, and we’ll enjoy doing it.” This can be achieved by beginning the laboratory promptly and in a systematic and businesslike fashion, preferably in the classroom where students can sit in the academic environment and check notebooks for project timeliness and daily objectives before reporting to the laboratory space.

Students need to report for lab promptly and be dressed and ready for work within a set number of minutes after being dismissed from the classroom. The roll should then be checked in the laboratory environment to ensure each student is where they need to be for that day. This can be done by the teacher or by the laboratory supervisor for that day.

Assignments for the day then need to be given. They may be given on paper, on the chalkboard, or orally. Each student must know their assignment. The teacher needs to be sure that the students know the goals or objectives for the lab activities and that they clearly see the relationship of their lab work to their previous classroom learning.

Prior to allowing students to begin work, the teacher or an appointed student, such as the laboratory supervisor for that day, needs to double-check to be sure that every student knows what to do and how to get started. Only then should students be allowed to start work.

If this procedure or a similar one is not followed, then some students begin work, others do not, there is more opportunity for off task behavior, there is confusion as to who is supposed to do what, and the general atmosphere of the laboratory is not conductive to learning.

Procedures to follow in ending the laboratory period. Just as the laboratory period needs to be started in a businesslike manner, it is also imperative that it be ended in such a manner. The following procedures are suggested:

1. Signal a time to stop. This may be done by blowing a whistle, ringing a bell, or other procedures that can become habitual for students. Upon giving the “stop work” signal, everyone must immediately cease work; otherwise, the system does not work. This expectation has to be clearly defined early in the school year, reinforced, and practiced.
2. Student put away their work, tools, and equipment. Students need to clear the laboratory so it can be cleaned daily. Projects cannot be left strewn about. Students cannot be allowed to leave tools out, reasoning that they’ll be needed again tomorrow or by students in another laboratory. Such practice leads to a situation in which no one can find anything. If a student is acting as the equipment manager, all items used in the laboratory were checked-out by that person and must be checked back in by that person.
3. Everyone joins in to clean the entire laboratory. The only way this works is if everyone has a specific duty during clean-up. Teachers ought to demonstrate how they want each clean-up job performed; otherwise, perfection will not be attained. These duties need to be rotated since some are much less pleasant than others. Many teachers in agriculture mechanics laboratories use a clean-up wheel, which can be created for all types of laboratories. All students’ names in the class are included in the center circle. Then one clean-up duty for each name is listed on the outer circle. The wheel rotates clockwise one name each class period.
4. Once all clean-up duties have been completed, students may clean themselves up and dress for the rest of their school day. This prioritizes the clean-up of the collective space first and ensures that it is complete.
5. Students wait for dismissal from the teacher. Once students are ready to leave the laboratory they must wait until the teacher is satisfied, primarily via the laboratory supervisor, that everything is in order. The teacher then needs to dismiss the class. The students do not leave until the teacher has dismissed them; otherwise, laboratory clean-up may not be completed well.

If the laboratory is not cleaned after every class period, then no system will work. A clean laboratory is an efficient and productive laboratory and must be a priority item with teachers and students alike.

Using Learning Centers to Manage Laboratory Tasks with Limited Materials

Generally, there is not sufficient work, materials, or equipment that all the students in the laboratory can be doing the same thing. For example, if students need to practice transplanting shrubs, seldom are there enough shovels or pruners and other equipment to accommodate everyone in the class at the same time. In the case of an animal care program, a school generally does not have enough aquaria so that each student or even pair of students can simultaneously master the process of setting up an aquarium. Thus, teachers have to design what are called learning centers in order to have all of the students productively involved.

Setting up learning centers. A learning center is an area (physically and in terms of subject matter) within the laboratory where similar (like) work is performed. The specific learning centers in a laboratory during a given part of the school year are determined by the teacher’s course of study. While the ideal of presenting the basics in the classroom, followed immediately by practice, is never perfectly attained, there must be a reasonable degree of connection between the development of understandings and the development of skills.

Once learning centers have been identified or chosen, the teacher must plan the specific learning activities to be completed in each of the learning centers. This should not be construed to mean that every group of students who work in a learning center completes the same activities. For example, the group that works in the flower shop one week might make three planters, but the group the next week may not make any. It all depends on the work that needs to be done during the time students are in the learning center. However, if the teacher is rotating students through a learning center to learn striking an arc and laying a bead in welding (initial skill development), then all students who go through that center will complete the same activities since this is a basic skill development-learning center. This planning is fairly well dictated by the work to be done and the prior instruction that students have had. Before students can engage in meaningful practice, they must have a precise idea of what they are to do, what tools and supplies they need in order to do it, and what procedures they must follow. Once teachers develop assignment sheets for the basic learning center assignments, this part of planning can be used and reused.

Rotating students through learning centers. If all the students cannot do the same tasks at the same time and must divide into work groups and work at separate learning centers during lab, then the teacher must have a viable system to make sure that over a period of time, all students get all of the essential experiences. This plan is called a rotation system. It is a plan that ensures that each work group of students has a chance to work through all the learning centers over a period of time. Depending on the nature of the program, this rotation could be completed once during the school year or could be completed every week or two.

For example, in horticulture a group of students might work in the greenhouse for one day, work in the flower shop the next, care for a school golf green the third day, prune trees the fourth day, and maintain horticulture equipment the final day of the week. However, in an agricultural industrial mechanics program a group of students may work on engine overhaul for an entire grading period. The length of time in a center, the number of centers, and the frequency of rotation from one center to another depends on the nature of the work being done and the scope of the work. It takes longer to assemble an aquaculture system than it does to make a corsage and therein lies the determiner of frequency of rotation.

Rotation is not the easiest way to manage laboratory learning. Typically, the easiest way to manage a laboratory is to have every student practicing the same skill. Nor is rotation the most preferred way to manage a laboratory based on educational soundness. Rather it is a necessity. However, rotation is far better than planning enough lab work for each individual student for one day, and then the next day starting to plan from scratch all over again. Its primary strength is that it brings an acceptable degree of systematization, clarity, and structure. It also provides for accountability in that it allows every student to work in every area.

A rotation schedule is planned by grouping work into a number of areas that can accommodate the number of students in the class in mathematically divisible units. For example, if one has twenty-four students, then four learning centers that accommodate six students each might be used; or six centers of four each; or two centers for six students each and four centers for three students each. Another important consideration is that the learning centers require about the same amount of time or divisible portions thereof. For example, if there are four centers of six students each, then all four centers need to require the same amount of time (one week, one month, or whatever is needed). In the case of using two groups of six each and four groups of three each, the groups of three would have to have twice the number of stations as the groups of six, that is, groups of six spend one month (or other unit of time) in a center while the groups of three work in two stations of two weeks each.