After years of suffering through dull lab safety videos, a group of Berkeley students have made a film that could spare a younger generation from watching humorless people with 80's hair explain the dangers of wearing open-toed shoes while working with chemicals.
Their music video evokes the Muppets while conveying several important messages that can keep kids from getting hurt.
"Lab safety has been a real issue recently," said Patrick Bennett, who directed and edited the short film. "And a few high chemistry school teachers we knew were interested in showing stuff like the nano song in their classes."
Late last year, a UCLA lab technician was fatally wounded when a plastic syringe filled with tert-butyl lithium, which ignites upon exposure to air, broke and sprayed the flammable liquid all over her. That incident sparked a great deal of interest among chemists in updating their safety training materials.
After Bennett's group of musicians, songwriters, and puppeteers won several awards for making an educational video about nanotechnology, they turned their attention to preventing tragic accidents.
Producing their next clip took more than four months. "The music writing took quite a while, I heard the first cut back in July," Bennett said. "The video itself we filmed in mid September and didn't finish till last week."
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