Lab 1: Laboratory Safety & Introduction to Measurement
Description
In this interactive lab, students explore the foundations of working safely and precisely in a biology laboratory. The module opens with a hands-on safety station covering personal protective equipment, hazard identification, emergency response, and proper waste disposal, using drag-and-drop activities and realistic scenarios instead of passive reading. It then moves into an introduction to measurement, where students use live conversion tools to practice working with the metric system and translating between metric and imperial units for length, volume, mass, and temperature. Throughout, students build their own lab notebook of notes and checkmarks as they progress, reinforcing each concept before advancing to the next station.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this lab, students will be able to identify and correctly apply the core safety rules and personal protective equipment required in a biology laboratory, recognize and appropriately handle chemical, biological, physical, radiological, and mechanical hazards, and respond correctly to common lab emergencies such as chemical splashes, fires, and spills. Students will also be able to identify the base units of the metric system for length, volume, mass, and temperature, apply metric prefixes to convert between units, and accurately convert measurements between the metric and imperial systems, including temperature conversions between Celsius and Fahrenheit.