4 Engaging Lab Safety Activities

The back-to-school year in science class usually involves a unit on lab safety. However, after students have been exposed to the rules of staying safe in the lab, finding new ways to engage students in lab safety activities can be challenging.

If you are a science teacher looking for new ways to keep students interested in lab safety, check out these ideas below:

Fun Lab Safety Activities

1. Zombie College Lab Safety video:

Students are always interested in zombies, so why not integrate them into your lab safety unit?

This video from Zombie College includes a video about what can happen when lab safety procedures aren’t followed.

In addition to the10 minute lab safety video, there is a video game, student materials including:

word scramble
5 rules of lab safety worksheet

and a music video on the 5 rules of lab safety.

This website can fulfill all your teaching needs depending on how long you need to spend going over ways to stay safe in your classroom laboratory.

Note to teacher: While I have shown this video to grade 7 and 8 students, please view it first to decide if it is appropriate for your student audience.

2. Student Created Video Lab Safety Activity

Start your school ear off with this fun and simple graded assignment.

After learning about ways to stay safe in the laboratory, have students choose one lab safety rule to illustrate. This it’s a simple way to get them back into the swing of class and homework assignments and the illustrations look great hanging in your classroom for Back to School Night.

Students create a simple script for their chosen lab safety rule and video themselves using a free program like FlipGrid.

The lab safety video script is simply

Identifying the chosen lab safety rule
State reasons why it is important to follow this rule in the classroom.

Videos will be relatively short, so if you have a large class, it can still work. Students get a kick out of seeing themselves on screen. However for students who do not prefer to be on screen, allow them to use their illustration as the focus and they can do a voiceover in the background.

Another great idea is to show the videos at Back to School Night. Parents find it adorable and think you put so much time and effort into putting the videos together. Total score for you!

3. Lab Safety Review Game

Lab Safety Jeopardy: This game is already created for you. At the beginning, simply divide your class into teams and tell the game the number of teams playing. Then begin. The categories include:

Equipment and practice
Should I?
Fire, Chemicals, and Goggles, Oh My!
Lab Procedures
Random Science Safety

"Eye" Know Lab Safety Activity

This lab activity will integrate the safety rules into a fun experiment. This activity would engage students on the first days of school or as an introduction to your lab safety unit.

Many students may not understand the need for goggles in the classroom. This eye protection lab uses:

Egg whites
Alcohol
Petri dishes
Markers
Dropper
Water

to teach students the importance of keeping their eyes safe during lab experiences.

To complete this science experiment,

use the marker to draw an eyeball at the bottom of the Petri dish.
Then, put one egg white in each of the dishes.
Pour water into one dish.
Pour alcohol into the other dish.
Observe.

This activity will excite students while teaching them about the importance of lab safety.

Are you looking for more activities to use with your students? This unit includes unique ways to teach students to stay safe in the science laboratory and classroom. It includes classroom decor and activities to introduce, teach, and reinforce concepts related to safety.