A New Direction

 

       This week my internship, and therefore my blog, takes a turn in an entirely new direction. As those of you who read my blog know, I have been working with elementary age, special education students at Houston Elementary in Gilbert. However, after further consideration – and a very informative meeting with Amanda – I decided to join many of my fellow S-STEM recipients and work in the Phoenix College biology lab. Having very minimal biology this is a very exciting time for me and I can already tell that I am really going to enjoy this new adventure.

       Since all good new experiences begin with a lesson in safety it was no surprise to me that my biology lab experience began with information pertaining to safety. Clearly, any laboratory environment has the potential of being a hazardous setting. Professors and students alike are exposed to a number of potentially dangerous conditions, including: chemical, biological, radioactive and accident/injury.

       In order to maintain a safe environment all parties must abide by an enforceable code of behavior and procedure. They must respect and follow the numerous rules that have been adopted by the laboratory, whether they are the result of departmental regulations or state/federal law. Unfortunately, as a person becomes comfortable in a setting many times rules become lax and many times are forgotten.

       I found an example of an incident that occurred at Boston College in June of 2011. According to news reports a graduate level chemistry student was working alone in a lab with only a small amount of thionyl chloride. A small explosion occurred and the student received minor cuts and burns to her face and hands. Though a minor incident the student complicated matters by driving herself home before a thorough decontamination could be undertaken – as such the contamination site, which should have been contained to the lab, grew to include a car and an apartment (Wolford, 2011).

       Unfortunately, not all laboratory accidents are so easily ‘cleaned up’. In late December of 2009, a UCLA staff research assistant died after receiving second and third degree burns over much of her body in a chemical fire. Though only a mere six feet from a shower, the poorly trained researcher ran in the opposite direction. Investigation into this incident led to criminal charges being filed against UC regents and the chemistry professor who oversaw the lab (Grasgreen, 2012).

        The lab at Phoenix College is a wonderfully exciting place, I am sincerely looking forward to the time that I will spend working with the people and the equipment over the course of this semester. And, I’m glad Josh and Matt took the time to teach me about safety!

References:

Grasgreen, A. (2012). Fallout from a lab tragedy. Retrieved from
             http://www.insidehighered.com
             /news/2012/01/03/ucla-faces-criminal-charges-lab-accident

Wolford, B. (2011). Boston.com. Retrieved from

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2011/06