Teaching experimental design and letting students develop their own questions and hypotheses takes time. These materials have been created to scaffold and structure the process to allow teachers to focus on improving the key ideas in experimental design.
A solid understanding of lab safety practices is essential for our students to carry out practical work in the laboratory. Students love completing practical work and can learn a great deal from hands on activities. Learn more about lab safety at Storyboard That!
Experimental Design Risk Assessment for science experiments
Storyboard Text
Running
Activity
Risk
Risk Management
Seeing how fast you can run 100 m
• Students could fall and hurt themselves • Asthma attack if students have asthma • Strained muscles
• Clear the running track of objects that people could fall over • If the participant has asthma check that they have their inhaler • Warm up and cool down effectively
Heating
Heating with a Bunsen burner
• Students could burn themselves • Students could set their hair alight • Students could damaged their eyes
• Leave the equipment to cool before touching it • Switch their Bunsen burner off when they finish heating • Wear safety googles when heating and tie hair back
Dissection
Dissecting a sheep's heart with scissors and scalpel
• Students could cut themselves while using scalpel or scissors • Students could get food poisoning from contaminated hearts
• Don't walk around with scalpel or scissors • Wear gloves during dissection and wash hands after dissection • Disinfect desks and materials after the dissection