This resource provides practical safety advice and considerations for home-based, hands-on activities, as written by NSTA Chief Safety Blogger Dr. Ken Roy.
Introduction
With the advance of the COVID-19 pandemic during the latter part of the 2019-2020 academic year, virtual learning became the viable alternative in many school districts nationwide. In this venue, some science/STEM teachers considered and adopted hands-on activities to be completed remotely at home by students. This coming fall, for the 2020-2021 school year, there probably will be a continued need for such home-based, hands-on activities. This actually is not new. Teachers have assigned home activities for years, such as science fair projects, extra-credit work, general classroom homework assignments, and more. The bottom line is this: Whether hands-on activities are done in a formal academic school laboratory or out in the field or at home, all modes are a springboard for developing scientific concepts and methodology.