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Safety Goggles Lab

Decent Essays

When observing, assisting, or leading a high school or undergraduate chemistry lab, the statement that is frequently said and heard is the reminder to put on safety goggles. Often times students will forget about wearing their goggles or they will place their goggles on their foreheads, instead of covering their eyes. The have been personal experiences where students will argue with the instructor about not wearing their goggles during an experiment. The distaste of the safety goggles typically comes from the comfortability of the goggles (1), and students will remove their goggles as soon as possible. Once an instructor notices the improper placement of the goggles, the whole lab hears the loud statement of “PUT ON YOUR GOGGLES PLEASE.” The students’ spines may tighten when hearing the reminder several times during a single experiment, but they should not blame the instructor. Wearing the appropriate eye protection correctly is …show more content…

Sharpless was an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the year 1970. Dr. Sharpless noted that he always wore eye protection in the lab, except for this one occasion. He was checking on a new student in the graduate program while the student was sealing a NMR tube. Two major mistakes occurred while aiding the new student. The first mistake was not looking up how to properly seal the NMR tube, and the second was Dr. Sharpless not wearing his goggles. While taking the tube out of liquid nitrogen, the solvent inside the tube exploded causing shards of glass to enter one of Dr. Sharpless’s eyes. This lab accident cause Dr. Sharpless to lose his vision completely in the eye that was impacted by the glass shards. Dr. Sharpless ends his story with a message for the students who complain about wearing their goggles. This message is “the lesson to be learned from my experience is straightforward: there's simply never an adequate excuse for not wearing safety glasses in the laboratory at all times”

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