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Chemistry demonstrations to
enhance teaching and learning
Please read the notes below before
entering the site:
Welcome to the Royal Society of
Chemistry chemical demonstrations site. This site gives descriptions and
instructions for carrying out a variety of chemical demonstrations that will be
useful in schools and colleges.
Some of the demonstrations involve
extremely vigorous reactions and / or very hazardous substances. These
demonstrations should not be carried out by students. They should be carried
out only by experienced chemistry teachers who have safely carried out
reactions such as Thermite reactions, hydrogen reductions of copper oxide or
the reactions of alkali metal with water many times. Teachers should understand
the need for rigid adherence to control measures and have access to appropriate
safety equipment such as safety screens and fume cupboards. Technicians
preparing material for these experiments should also have appropriate
experience. If in doubt about your competence to carry out a particular
experiment, do not attempt it.
Teachers should not be tempted to
vary the procedures described and, in particular, they should not increase
amounts of chemicals or change the reagents from those stated in the methods
described.
Teachers should try the experiments
out before performing them to groups of students but they should not try them
out whilst alone in the laboratory.
In UK law, health and safety is the
responsibility of the employer, which, in a school or college is likely to be
the Local Education Authority or the Governing Body. Teachers have a duty to
co-operate with their employer on health and safety matters. Various
regulations, but especially the COSHH Regulations 2002 and the Management of
Health and Safety at Work Regulations1998, require that before any activity
involving a hazardous procedure or harmful micro-organisms is carried out, or
hazardous chemicals are used or made, the employer must provide a risk
assessment.
A useful summary of the
requirements for risk assessment in school or college science can be found in
Chapter 4 of Safety in Science Education. For members, the CLEAPSS
guide, Managing Risk Assessment in Science offers detailed
advice.
Most education employers have
adopted a range of nationally available publications as the basis for Model
Risk Assessments. Those commonly used include:
- DfEE, Safety in Science
Education, London: HMSO, 1996 (ISBN 0 11 270915 X);
- Topics in Safety 3rd
edition, Hatfield: Association for Science Education, 2001 (ISBN 0 86357 316
9);
- Safeguards in the School
Laboratory, 10th edition, Hatfield: Association for Science Education, 1996
(ISBN 0 86357 250 2);
- Hazcards, 1995 or later,
Uxbridge: CLEAPSS School Science Service, 1995 or
later§;
- Recipe Cards, 1999 or
later, Uxbridge: CLEAPSS School Science Service, 1999 or
later§;
- CLEAPSS Laboratory
Handbook, 2001 or later, Uxbridge CLEAPSS School Science Service, 2001;
(paper or CD-ROM versions) §
- CLEAPSS Shorter Handbook,
Uxbridge: CLEAPSS School Science Service, 2000§;
- Hazardous Chemicals, an
interactive manual for Science Education CD2; Edinburgh: Scottish Schools
Equipment Research Centre, 2002.
§ Note that CLEAPSS
(Consortium of Local Education Authorities for the Provision of Science
Services) publications are only available to members or associates.
Where an employer has adopted these
or other publications as the basis of their model risk assessments, an
individual school or college then has to review them, to see if there is a need
to modify or adapt them in some way to suit the particular conditions of the
establishment. Such adaptations might include a reduced scale of working,
deciding that the fume cupboard provision was inadequate or the skills or
behaviour of the students were insufficient to attempt particular activities
safely.
The significant findings of such
risk assessment should then be recorded, for example on schemes of work,
published teachers' guides, worksheets, etc.
There is no specific legal
requirement that detailed risk assessment forms should be completed, although a
few employers require this.
When candidates are planning their
own investigative work the teacher has a duty to check the plans before the
practical work starts and to monitor the activity as it
proceeds.
Visit
www.practicalchemistry.org for
more chemistry experiments and demonstrations.
Chemistry demonstrations to enhance teaching and
learning
download the documents as Word or
PDF files.
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