Occupational health and safety

PC1 laboratory rules and eating in classrooms: Are all school laboratories classified as PC1 laboratories and if so are students permitted to eat in classrooms? For example, when a teacher wants to demonstrate digestion practicals, can they eat shop bought items such as biscuits, lollies to demonstrate why mastication is important or if they've used food as a model e.g. snack tectonics, can the students eat them? When practicals revolve around the making of cheese or yogurt using lab equipment can the created items be consumed? Many thanks for your reply.

Animal skeleton: One of our teachers can get a sheep skeleton from someone. The sheep died in a field and the bones are now devoid of any flesh. The teacher wants to know if there is a way in which the skeleton can be cleaned/sterilised so it can be used in the classroom to show the structure of the long bones and the spine etc. I know that we are not allowed to use anything not sourced from a reputable supplier (because of possible disease, fungus and pathogens it may be carrying) but the teacher would like to know if there is something that can be done so she can use it.

Gene induction experiment?: A teacher has asked about the possibility of setting up an experiment to induce expression of β-galactosidase in E. coli (http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/practical-biology/gene-induction-%C3%9F-galactosidase-e-coli).

Chemical Store: In my chemical store I have my hazardous and non-hazardous chemicals separate. Do we need to separate these or can they all go together ensuring there are no incompatibilities.

Chemical storage: I am after some information regarding safe storage of chemicals in schools. We have one small prep room with all of the chemical cabinets in said prep room. I was under the impression stock chemicals should be stored in a separate room with a locked door?

I have an OH&S meeting next week and was hoping to have some information to back up my claim that we need a separate chemical store. Any chance you could help or direct me to useful info?

Thanks for your time.

Use of lead in ACT schools: From reading answers to another question, it's my understanding that lead is banned in some Australian jurisdictions, and approved or restricted in others.

Can anyone tell me if lead (solid, lead shot, salts) is allowed to be used in Years 7 to 10 in ACT class rooms? Or where exactly I go to find this out?

Microbiology: 2016 draft of the new senior syllabus: In reference to the QLD Biology 2016 Draft Senior Syllabus: The Unit 2, Topic 2.2 Infectious Disease, (MANDATORY practical: Investigate the effect of an antimicrobial on the growth of a microbiological organism (via the measurement of zones of inhibition) AND Suggested practical: Investigate the efficiency of hand washing compared to alcohol-based antiseptic gels for reducing the bacterial load on hands using agar plates or other modelling activity).

HCl + NH₄OH Reaction: Hi, could you please advise me about a demo of HCl and NH₄OH fumes mixing? Is it safe enough to put 30 ml (or less?) of each into separate petri dishes in the fume hood? Can the fume hood be turned off for 10 seconds for better visibility of the NH₄Cl and then turned back on again?

Snail Dissections: Hi I have a teacher that wants to do a snail dissection with 13 year old students. I thought we were not allowed to do them due to the number of parasites that snails can carry. Is this the case? As we have not purchased laboratory breed snails.

Mixing of alcohols: an IB student would like to investigate the effect in heat energy of mixing methanol and ethanol or ethanol or propanol or ethanol and butanol, is this safe? I read SDS and it doesnt provide any information regarding this query. Hope you can help. Many thanks