How Risky is Chocolate?
Dr Joanna Bates (Materials Science and Engineering), Claire
Johnson (Materials Science and Engineering), Kerry McLaughlin (Materials
Science and Engineering), Nadia Fernandes (Materials Science and Engineering),
Stephen Mason (Materials Science and Engineering), Dr Julian Dean (Materials
Science and Engineering)
What is this about?
Health and safety for undergraduate students is generally
considered dull and boring, usually performed as a lecture on what you should
and should not do. Understanding the importance of the risk and hazards in
performing experiments and how to design methods to minimize them is essential
for any scientist and is not a matter of knowledge but of critical thinking and
planning. Here we show how we have developed and employed a hands-on experience
of risk assessment using chocolate, liquid nitrogen and a mechanical test
called a Charpy impact tester that allows us to measure the toughness of
materials. This session runs successfully now as part of our first year cross
faculty engineering laboratories (>700 students) with students filling in
their own risk assessments for a potentially dangerous experiment, planning an
experimental protocol and then using it to perform the experiment in the
laboratory.
How will colleagues
benefit?
Colleagues will benefit in a number of ways. Firstly, by the
discussion within the conference of our staff and student experience of the
session and what did and what did not work. Secondly, the problems we have
faced and solved in running this session due to students’ various educational
backgrounds, confidence and experience. We are also happy to provide our
teaching materials that we use to run this session, including the introductory
talk, laboratory script, marking guide, design specifications of the easy to
make Charpy tester and our chocolate suppliers (a leading supermarket).
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