Teachers and administrators have the opportunity to instill and foster a safety mindset in high school students during some of their earliest exposures to science and laboratory work. The resources on this page will help guide your messaging and curriculum in a "safety" direction. The following guidelines were developed with high school teachers in mind, using the RAMP framework for scientific safety.
Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Secondary Schools
These guidelines were developed by ACS to help high school teachers in all science subjects to progressively increase their understanding of best practices to ensure the safety of their students and themselves in the scientific learning experience.
Safety Guidelines and Recommendations for High School Teachers
ACS has developed guidelines on safety intended to provide teachers, administrators and school personnel with an overview of current best practices and resources where further safety information may be located.
This infographic shows how to set goals, plan key logistics, and prepare materials for chemistry demos.
Demo
A Safer "Rainbow Flame" Demo
The Flame Test is a safer version of the traditional Rainbow Demonstration, an exercise popularly conducted in chemistry classrooms.
Rubrics & Templates for Safer Demonstrations & Experiments
Template
Safety Rubric for Assessing Chemical Demonstration Videos
The purpose of this rubric is to provide a template for educators to review the safety and pedagogy of chemical demonstration videos in order to determine whether they should be used.
Template
RAMP Teacher Template [PDF]
Use this simple template with your chemical demonstrations and laboratory experiments to help you recognize hazards, assess and minimize the risks of those hazards, and prepare for emergencies
Online Guide
Student Laboratory Code of Conduct
This Acknowledgment Form is a template for consideration by chemistry teachers, administrators and the school board as they design safety protocols for student behavior in their chemistry labs.
Other Safety Resources for Your Classrooms:
Safety Mindset videos: Use this video series from AACT to introduce your students to elements of safe importance of safety mindset in the chemistry lab.
Download the RAMP Poster to use in your classroom to remind students to: Recognize, Assess, Minimize, and Prepare!
Engage with other members of the chemical safety community. Membership provides networking opportunities, access to career advancement tools, meeting discounts, and more.