Safety shares in the chemical engineering class room

• Each lecture in one subject begun with a 2–4 min safety share.
• Safety shares used to introduce students to process safety.
• Survey students declared the safety shares to be interesting and valuable.

Over three semesters, every lecture in a second year chemical engineering subject was begun with a safety share, a 2–4 min discussion on some aspect of safety. This reflects the practice in many industries today in which all meetings, no matter what the topic, begin with a brief discussion on some aspect of safety. The content of the safety shares were not relevant to the lecture material of the subject which covered material and energy balances and students were advised that the content would not be examinable. The safety shares covered general advice on safe practice including the importance of situational awareness and working in confined spaces. Other safety shares discussed case studies that allowed concepts such as human factors and the dangers of static electricity to be introduced. A survey of the three cohorts after the subjects had been completed showed that the students found the safety shares to be a good way to introduce the importance of safety in the work place. They found the shares interesting and did not consider the time spent on them at the start of the classes to be wasted. Over fifty safety shares used in the classes are presented.