Mastering biotech lab safety: creating a safety contract

In previous posts, we talked about the ways that you can prepare your lab and your experiments to keep your students safe. The final thing we suggest is to create and distribute a lab safety contract. This document is a written agreement between students, their caregivers, and school staff that outlines expectations and guidelines for conduct in the lab. Here are some ideas for guidelines you can include in your lab safety contract.

1. Student personal conduct: At minimum, this first guideline focuses on an individual maintaining appropriate behavior in the lab at all times — no hitting, horseplay, running, and respect other student’s personal space.
2. Following protocols: When we provide students with a protocol, we know that the steps are in a specific order to ensure the experiment is safe and successful. Students should agree to focus on the established protocol and not perform other potentially unsafe tasks. The exception is if the experiment is inquiry-driven by the student — in this case, they should craft a protocol ahead of time and submit it to you for approval.
3. Proper PPE and clothes: Students need to protect themselves from their experiments! Depending on the reagents used, they should agree to wear goggles, gloves, and lab coats. Attention should also be drawn to the student’s clothing as well — no open toed shoes, loose sleeves, or dangling jewelry that can get caught.
4. No food, drink, or cosmetics in the lab: This one’s easy — we want to keep chemicals and other potentially dangerous reagents off of the students. Performing any of these activities increases the risk of chemical ingestion.
5. Know the locations of the safety equipment: We can plan for success in the lab, but mistakes happen. This means we also need to plan for problems. Students should know the locations of safety features like fire blankets and extinguishers, showers and eyewashes, and exits

6. Never work alone: If accidents happen, you’ll need someone around in case you need help. In general, students will likely be working with a partner. However, if they’re doing independent study, make sure that there is an adult or other lab supervisor around in case an accident happens.
7. Clean up after yourself: Students should leave their lab the way it was when they entered. Chemicals should be cleaned and disposed of following guidelines. If something breaks, they should first let the instructor know and then clean up the mess according to best practices

Each student, their caregivers, and the staff should review and sign the lab safety contract before beginning hands-on experiments. This helps ensure a happy, healthy, and productive lab session!