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Creating Customized, Relevant, and Engaging Laboratory Safety Videos Michael L. Matson, Jeffrey P. Fitzgerald, and Shirley Lin* Department of Chemistry, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD 21402; *
[email protected] A necessary component of laboratory instruction is a discussion of safe lab practices. Lab safety may be presented in a variety of ways, including direct instruction (1), studentcentered cooperative methods (2), seminar courses (3), trivia games (4), skits (5), scavenger hunts (6), and word-search puzzles (7). One common method for large general chemistry classes is for students to view a safety video. The safety video, Starting with Safety (1991) by the American Chemical Society, has been shown on the first day of lab instruction at this institution to ∼1200 students enrolled in a two-semester general chemistry sequence. While Starting with Safety adequately covers the five topics of laboratory safety most relevant to the course (dressing for safety, handling chemicals, Bunsen burner and glassware safety, safe behavior in the laboratory, and emergency equipment), we found that the video has several drawbacks. First, it was not time-efficient to show the entire video (running time of 35 minutes) since not all the segments were relevant to our institution or applicable to the experiments being conducted in the course. For example, there are directives regarding tying back long hair and not wearing open-toed shoes, both nonexistent concerns at a military institution with strict uniform regulations. We initially dealt with this problem by deleting unnecessary scenes, yet some irrelevant portions still were required to be shown owing to immediate placement between relevant segments. Just in the past few years, with the present multimedia technology available, we were able to edit out all unnecessary segments to yield a 20 minute presentation. Second, the video failed to emphasize the common safety practices most often violated by our students. For instance, our laboratories are arranged in studiostyle with fume hoods lining the walls, where the majority of experiments are conducted, and four island benches in the middle of the room; this configuration often tempts students to put food or drinks on the island benches. Lastly, Starting with Safety is 15 years old and the style in which the film
was made did not engage its present-day audience; evidence for this was seen in the number of students distracted during the video and the resulting lack of retention of content when performing experiments later in the semester. We have addressed these concerns by producing our own laboratory safety video for general chemistry that is specific to our student population and laboratory experiments. In this way, the content could be customized to our laboratory environment and experiments. We could also choose a presentation style more engaging to our audience. The concept of our video was to intersperse clips from popular film, television, and music between segments relating safety instruction1,2; the wide availability of movies and television in DVD and VHS format made the project feasible. The video was created using the multimedia software program Pinnacle Studio 9 ,3 which allowed manipulation of images and sound independent from each other, as well as addition of text, both as screen-sized slides and simple subtitles. Clips from popular films and television programs, ranging from 5–10 seconds in length, immediately followed approximately 80% of the safety instructions; they were chosen to have content relevant to that particular policy and to engage the intended audience. The safety aspect was reinforced during the clip by adding subtitles restating the mandate. For instance, the safety directive “remove rings while working the laboratory” was presented as a custom voice-over during a clip from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring where one of the characters, Bilbo Baggins, takes off the ring of invisibility; the sentence “Remove your rings while in the laboratory” appears during the clip as a subtitle. Some other examples of films paired with safety instructions are shown in Table 1. The resulting 17 minute film covers all the relevant material previously shown in Starting with Safety, but presented at a faster pace in a much more engaging style. We were able to incorporate pictures taken in our own laboratories to show
Table 1. Examples of Safety Instructions Paired with Film Clips Safety Instruction
Film
Scene
Wear goggles
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Willy Wonka leads the children into the TV Room
Work with chemicals in small containers
Aladdin (1992)
Aladdin releases Genie from his bottle
Read and re-read instructions
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Monks read instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade
No loose clothing
The Incredibles (2004)
Edna Mode explains her “no capes” policy
Wash hands after conducting experiments
Fight Club (1999)
The narrator gets a chemical burn from Tyler Durden
Have instructors use a fire extinguisher for large fires
Star Wars (1977)
R2–D2 puts out a fire onboard the Millenium Falcon
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eye washes and fire extinguishers as well as include Navyrelated films such as Top Gun and A Few Good Men. A nearfinal version of the film was completed by a senior chemistry major over the course of one semester.4 A comparison of students who viewed the 20 minute edited version of Starting with Safety (74 students) and students who saw our new customized video (78 students) revealed no difference in scores on a brief laboratory quiz given immediately after viewing the videos. However, on a scale of one to five, students rated both videos equally effective at teaching laboratory safety practices but those who saw the customized video found it more entertaining (average score of 1.20 versus 3.07) and highly recommended the video being shown again next year (average score of 1.22 versus 2.44). This approach to creating a safety video customized to its audience is one that is highly feasible at most universities given the digital technology and computer resources available for integrating image, sound, and text. Schools can then incorporate images specific to their laboratories and clips from film and television popular among students on their campuses. The addition of film and television clips may be permitted under fair use after evaluating four factors (8): (i) the purpose and character of the intended use (academic versus commercial); (ii) the nature of the copyrighted work (fiction versus nonfiction); (iii) the quantity and substantiality of the material used relative to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (iv) the effect of the use on the potential market or value of the work. Any use of film or TV clips should be properly credited and schools should consult their legal offices regarding copyright issues. Acknowledgments We thank Karen Flecknoe, Cindi Gallgaher, and Gina Larson from the U.S. Naval Academy Multimedia Support Center for technical assistance, Robert F. Ferrante for help-
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ful guidance, and the USNA Chemistry Department for financial support. Notes 1. One reviewer suggested including a discussion of the laboratory safety information that is provided by suppliers of laboratory reagents in the video. These documents and the labels of chemicals are valuable resources in understanding chemical safety that are readily available. This information is also available in the Chemical Laboratory Information Profiles (CLIPs) that are published by this Journal. At USNA, each instructor’s lecture on laboratory safety includes a discussion of material safety data sheets (MSDSs) but this topic is not included in our customized video. 2. Another source of video clips regarding laboratory safety and techniques is the video collection Chemistry Comes Alive! produced by this Journal. The videos are available through the Journal Web site and on CD-ROM. 3. Other software packages capable of creating a customized video include Ulead VideoStudio, Apple iMovie, and Adobe Premiere. 4. Creating a customized laboratory safety video may also be an appropriate collaborative project for film or media-arts majors.
Literature Cited 1. Richardson, M.; Gentry, L.; Lane, K.; Vanverkum, D. J. Chem. Educ. 1994, 71, 689–690. 2. Wright, S. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 1519–1520. 3. Moody, A.; Freeman, R. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 1224–1225. 4. Gublo, K. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 425. 5. Hill, P.; Greco, T. J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72, 1126–1127. 6. Helser, T. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 68. 7. Helser, T. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 495. 8. Copyright Law, Title 17, United States Code. http://www. copyright.gov/title17/ (accessed Jul 2007).
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