Talk Dirty to Me: Teaching Undergraduate Students the Importance of Good Hygiene in the Teaching Laboratory

Indianapolis, IN

Safety and cleanliness is crucial for the success of chemists in any type of employment environment. Today's undergraduate chemists are often not fully prepared to enter the work place because they are not equipped with the necessary skill, knowledge, and attentive attitude for jobs in the laboratory. This presentation proposes a new, hands-on method of teaching laboratory cleanliness to undergraduate students via an organic laboratory experiment. A survey given to participants who performed this laboratory experiment and to a small control group to evaluate how completion of the experiment affected the following: (a) development of a greater appreciation of laboratory cleanliness, (b) understanding of the concept of thin-layer chromatography (TLC), and (c) development of a greater appreciation of common laboratory techniques.