February 23, 2013

National Healthy Schools Day 
http://www.nationalhealthyschoolsday.org/
Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 and all week long!

National Healthy Schools Day is coordinated by Healthy Schools Network in cooperation with US EPA and promotes the use of EPA's IAQ Tools for Schools guidance as well as other EPA environmental health guidelines and programs for schools and children’s health.
 
Participate locally, in your city or state, or nationally! Become a new or continuing organizational partner for 2013. Email us for information on how your school or group can be recognized! 

See the free online activity tools and suggestions, such as the all-new Healthy Schools Day State/City Proclamation/Resolution toolkit, or the Take Back Your IAQ Classroom Checklist. Visit our website for more ideas.

Two free informational conference calls for new and returning partners:

Thursday, February 28th at 4:00pm EST.
Tuesday, March 5th at 12pm EST.
http://www.nationalhealthyschoolsday.org/

February 18, 2013

Eye Protection

Chemical Science Safety in the Classroom 

American Chemical Society Video: "Safety in the Lab: Eye Protection"

"Recommendations for Cleaning Shared Goggles" Pg 19 in Safety in the Elementary Science Classroom, 3rd Edition

...

"Eyes in the lab" by Jyllian Kemsley • The Safety Zone Science writer Jyllian Kemsley and safety consultant Russ Phifer cover chemical safety issues in academic and industrial research labs and in manufacturing.

 

February 15, 2013


DIG SAFE
Regardless of where you are, there may be pipelines and other utilities buried underground.  It is important to follow safe digging practices, whether you are a homeowner planting a tree or digging a fence post hole, or a professional excavator. Safe digging always starts with a prior call to 811 and someone will come out and mark underground utilities. Knowing what's below enables diggers to avoid underground utilities, and can prevent injury, death, environmental damage and loss of critical services. Learn more about staying safe around pipelines by visiting PHMSA's Pipeline Safety Update.
--  PHMSA has a new page of interest here, dealing with pictures of near misses from the field.
 

February 14, 2013

New Science Standards Provide Exciting Opportunity for Expanded IPM Education
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a new document being created by the National Research Council (NRC), the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Achieve, could provide an ideal opportunity to bring IPM curricula into K-12 classrooms nationwide.

February 09, 2013

February 7, 2013 Dave Weber 
In my 40 year safety career, I’ve found that companies with the lowest turnover rates usually also have low accident rates and excellent safety cultures.

February 02, 2013

A True Safety Culture

Quoted from this article:  Combining Learning & Safety Management to Create a Safer, More Productive Workplace by Brett Williams, Product Management Director, UL PureSafety

Companies that create a true safety culture ensure that front-line employees are considered an extension of the safety team. They are given opportunities to learn about the safety principles that are important to their job function and invited to report unsafe conditions. Safety performance improves as front-line workers’ awareness increases and when incidents, observations and near misses, as well as and work-related injuries, are viewed and used as opportunities for learning.

... In these environments, employees are encouraged to report unsafe conditions so they can be corrected.

... Employees should be able to submit observations on unsafe conditions, people, processes, incidents and injuries in a non-punitive, systematic fashion.

...The real opportunity for employers, however, is to “memorialize” an incident or injury as part of the organization’s collective safety culture so it never happens again. 

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-- Example: Workplace Safety, VitalSmarts Video