FOLLOWING LAB PROTOCOLS

Our Biology classes were completing a lab on plant and animal cells on Thursday, Oct. 31.  Four periods were able to complete the lab without incident, and without a single example of student misconduct requiring correction.   Unfortunately, one period did not.

During 5th period, there was a significant violation of lab safety procedures and defiance by multiple students during lab.   As a result, Mr. Hatfield suspended lab for the entire class and asked for administrative support, in which it was explained in very clear terms what was unsafe and inappropriate.

Unfortunately, when there are many students not following safety procedures, there really is no alternative but to suspend lab privileges for the class as a whole.   An instructor can not run a lab properly if he has to refer multiple students for misconduct, and the unsafe behavior of one group could affect another group, or even the entire class.

To help give student an opportunity to complete the lab paperwork, Mr. Hatfield has created some graphics that show Elodea (plant) and human cheek cells (animal) at 100x and 400x magnification, respectively:

 

To be clear:  Mr. Hatfield wants to help students receive opportunities to raise their grades, but he is not obligated to allow classes to go to lab if he feels that significant numbers of students can not follow safety protocols.   At some point, it simply makes more sense to cover the content in ways that, while lacking the excitement of hands-on lab work, do not create significant risks for the instructor and students.