STEM Sparks September 2025
A Back-to-School Safety Review by Tyler Love, PhD, DTE and Ken Roy, PhD
As Technology and Engineering Education (TEE) teachers and leaders across the globe embark on a new academic year, they should be thinking about safety policies/protocols, legal safety standards, better professional safety practices, and instructional resources to support engaging (and safer) hands-on teaching and learning opportunities. While safety is always important, it has received increased attention recently due to the rising number of alternatively licensed educators. In this way, required safety training and supporting resources are even more critical for a safer hands-on TEE teaching and learning experience. Whether a new or experienced educator, safety concerns can be stressful. For example, studies have found that some educators will limit or remove hands-on lab activities from TEE curricula when they do not feel adequately prepared or supported to address potential safety hazards and resulting health and safety risks. This is why ITEEA maintains a focus on safety — to support new and experienced educators with providing safer technological and engineering teaching/learning experiences that foster student innovation.
ITEEA provides a number of excellent instructional resources to support teachers, administrators, TEE leaders, school systems, state departments of education, and many others. Some of the most popular resources are the free online safety tests, posters, and presentations. As evidence, approximately 50,000 safety test submissions were received in the past year! Another useful resource is ITEEA’s free 2022 eBook titled, Safer Engineering and CTE Instruction. This resource provides data-supported recommendations aligned with OSHA legal safety standards and better professional safety practices. It is an excellent resource to start informed conversations about safer teaching and learning in your school system. Demonstrating the importance of implementing safer teaching and learning practices, ITEEA’s STEM Center for Teaching and Learning™ incorporates ITEEA’s safety resources into their curriculum and instructional resources. Additionally, one excellent benefit for ITEEA members is the low-cost Educators Professional Liability policy offered through Forrest T. Jones & Company, Inc. All of these resources are offered to support safer hands-on TEE teaching and learning practices, which are a valuable component of developing technological and engineering literacy. Some other free resources of interest include: the Delaware Department of Education’s 2025 safety guide, the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s new safety guide (to be released later this year), a short article about overcrowding and other key safety issues, Dr. Ken Roy’s NSTA safety commentaries, and Dr. Roy’s X (Twitter) feed with weekly STEM safety events and stories (@drroysafersci).
Tyler Love, PhD, DTE, is a professor of CTE and Technology and Engineering Education at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
Ken Roy, PhD, is Chief Science Safety Compliance Consultant/Author/Columnist at the National Science Teaching Association