Lab safety workshops are hands-on

Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) will offer its hands-on Safety Workshop series again this fall. Launched in spring 2025, the five-part series covers key safety topics: 

• Safety Data Sheets: Chemical labeling, safe storage practices, proper use of personal protective equipment and effective spill cleanup procedures
• Hazard assessment: Practice with identifying, mitigating and controlling potential hazards in a lab
• Standard operating procedures: Knowledge and skills to create effective SOPs that enhance safety and efficiency in your workplace
• Hazardous waste management: Hazardous materials sorting and other management techniques, accurate completion of hazardous waste tags. This workshop includes a guided tour of EH&S' regulated materials storage facility.
• Laboratory inspections: Best practices for conducting thorough laboratory safety inspections. Complete your own self-paced safety survey in EH&S' training laboratory.

Free and open to all staff, faculty and students in any stage of their career at Iowa State, the series is for anyone who'd like to enhance their workplace safety knowledge. Completing the series isn't required; participants may register for those workshops most relevant to their work. The 90-minute workshops are held in a dynamic, in-person environment where participants can ask questions, handle materials and apply what they learn in real time for a clearer understanding of safety. Adventure2 participants can earn credit for each safety workshop they complete.

The workshop series is more in-depth than EHS' four-hour laboratory safety orientation, which provides a broad-strokes overview of laboratory safety expectations at Iowa State for faculty, staff or students.

The next cycle for the workshop series begins in September with Safety Data Sheets. More information, including registration links for upcoming workshops, is online.