Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: LITIGATION (was McDonald's Incident)



Depends on how one defines curriculum. Elimination of particularly dangerous experiments, not much in my experience (10 week HS substitute teacher this year compared to Frosh Chem. and Soph. Organic
in College over 25 years ago.

attention to safety VERY much: no contacts, no food, complete coverage eyes goggles, extensive warnings in the lab. manuals, plastic explosion and fire barriers (demos.), safety form with
students' signatures ( where are the fire extinguishers? alarm?, don't point test tubes, etc.), rubber aprons, micro labs. (for pollution too), etc. All new to me.


The chair (physics teacher next door) sponsored a student rail gun project. He won third place at the state fair!

bc

Rick Tarara wrote:

To bring this back on topic:

What (if any) effect has the 'ligitigation climate' had on science programs?
I would think that Chemistry programs are more 'at risk' especially
laboratory courses, but we were discussing some demos last week that would
probably cause a school's attorney to cringe. Have there been any real
effects on the science curriculum to date?

Rick

**************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

Free Physics Instructional Software
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara

Win9.x, WinNT/2000, Win3.x, Dos, Mac, and PowerMac
New: World Energy Simulator, Animated Chalkboard package
Windows and Mac CD-ROMs now available.
****************************************************