Okullarda Yaşanan Yazılı Ve Görsel Basına Yansıyan Fen Laboratuvar Kazaları

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to research the laboratory accidents which are reflected in the written and visual press. Determining how frequently these accidents are happening depending on the educational stage such as elementary school-high school-university and investigations of relation between these accidents occuring in schools and changes in teaching programs from 2005 to 2013 are aimed. 52 accidents which were reflected in the written and visual press based on laboratory accidents between 2000 and 2016 are forming the examples in this study. Research of this study is based on literature scanning. In this qualitative study, document analysis technique was used for data collection method. Online newspaper archives were scanned as data collection tool and the news of the accidents which were reflected in written and visual press were investigated with internet search engine. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the data. Descriptive analysis method was also used since individual citations were made from data collection tools where necessary. As a result of the research, it has been concluded that accidents involving schools were mostly accidents such as "toxic gas outflow", "test tube explosion", "mercury poisoning", "volatile chemicals" and "breakdown of glassware". "Errors originating from the teacher", "errors originating from the students", "problems originating from the laboratory environment", "problems originating from the material used", "problems originating from the experiment" and "errors originating from lack of knowledge and skills" were determined to be causes of laboratory accidents in schools. It has been determined that the accidents experienced in the schools tends to increase as the education level decreases through primary education. Accidents occurring in schools tend to increase as education level decreases to primary education from university education. It is concluded that 8% of these accidents have occurred at university level, 24% occured at high school level and 68% occurred at primary school level. When the relation between the changes in teaching programs and the frequency of accidents at the education levels is examined; it is seen that most accidents occurred between 2005 and 2012 at primary education level. It is noticed that a large majority of these accidents were “mercury poisoning”. It is observed that between 2013 and 2016, when the 2013 program was implemented, there was a decrease in accidents at the level of primary education. Last of all the fact that the accidents took place mostly at primary education level shows that class teachers and science teachers do not have sufficient knowledge about laboratory practices and also are not giving enough importance to laboratory safety and usage techniques.