In Science class we just finished working on lab safety for our first unit. We learned about different hazards like chemicals, fires and injuries like cuts and burns. We reviewed how to prevent accidents and where the safety equipment is in the classroom like the fire extinquisher, fire blanket, eye wash station, fire alarm and first aid kit. We used a map of the class to show these things and learned how to use them and what to do during an accident.
The final project was to make a video that showed lab safety situations and lab safety knowledge. The criteria was to “create, edit and produce a film that is entertaining, concise, and clearly demonstrates lab safety.” My group had Kyle, Sam and myself. The project required three safety situations so we wrote and filmed four examples to go above requirements. We shot in the third person with a narrator along with the actors in the scenes. We also made the video so that Sam would be the voice of Kyle and Sam would say everything Kyle would be thinking. We used these techniques to make it more interesting to the viewer and give more safety information to the audience. After each safety situation, we added a text visual to the screen to emphasize that scene’s safety message. We added music, sound effects, lots of humour and physical stunts to keep the audience’s attention and highlight events.
We shot the scenes from many different angles and approaches (track, close-up, wide, slow motion, eye level, ground level, character view, front and back of class,) to make it interesting and show different perspectives. After each safety situation we faded to black as a divider between scenes and to give the viewer time to think about the message.
The first lab safety situation was the importance of wearing safety goggles to protect the eyes (even overtop of regular glasses). The second was to show an accident if you wear your earbuds and listen to music in a science lab and aren’t aware of your surroundings. The third was what to do if you get a burn from a flame. The fourth was showing how important it is to keep your lab area clean and tidy so students don’t trip. I thought my slow motion fall over all the backpacks was a pretty good stunt move. I thought the four examples were relevant because they are the most likely to happen in a high school science class setting.
Overall I think this was a great idea for a project to learn about science lab safety in the classroom. Before we finalized the video we got teacher feedback to make sure we were doing a good job. Next time I would ask a second time for feedback on our revisions to find out if we were missing anything. Everyone in my group contributed equally and I thought we did a great job of meeting the requirement criteria in the rubric. I have included the link to the video below so you can take a look. I hope you like.
