Which chemicals do you use and which do you no longer need? King County's Rehab the Lab videos and resources can help you create a safer school lab. Ecology staff can also help your school with chemical management.
Look for drop-in replacements for hazardous chemicals in experiments you currently teach, or find safer experiments that have been specifically developed for high school science classes.
Safer Chemistry: Drop-in Replacement Labs
This webinar focuses on labs that use safer materials to cover the same content as traditional labs. Replacement examples include single, double, composition and decomposition reactions, flame test, and more.
Developed by Beyond Benign.
Beyond Benign's green chemistry replacement laboratory exercises
Beyond Benign provides a dozen different examples of lab exercises that replace hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives.
GCEdNet forum
Ask for alternatives in the Green Chemistry Education Network's forum, or see suggestions others have posted:
Many governments, organizations, educators, and private businesses have collaborated to create lab experiments, lessons, and teaching aids that explore green chemistry topics.
Introducing Green Chemistry: The Science of Solutions
This lesson introduces students to Green Chemistry, the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Students will use a wasteful, inefficient procedure to make glue and be challenged to improve the procedure using the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.
Before starting this lesson, students should have a basic understanding of the periodic table and properties of matter. The estimated time for this lesson is 50-60 minutes.
Developed by MIT Blossoms.
Building Chemical Hazard Awareness and Understanding
This module helps students understand the language of chemical hazards. Students will identify types of chemical reactions and distinguish between those that use safer, less hazardous chemicals and those that are more dangerous. The module incorporates other Beyond Benign curriculum and is a great complement to MoDRN's How to read a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) lesson.
Developed by Beyond Benign with funding from Ecology.
Oxybenzone versus Zinc Oxide in Sunscreen
This lesson challenges students to predict the differences between the various SPF levels and collect and analyze data to confirm or contradict their hypotheses. At the end of this lesson, students will understand health differences between zinc oxide and oxybenzone and recognize the safety issues associated with UV, tanning, and sun exposure. The lesson has customized versions for biology, chemistry, and environmental science classes.
Developed by Molecular Design Research Network (MoDRN).
Additional resources