The Chemistry Teaching Laboratory: A Sensory Overload Vortex for Students and Instructors?

Abstract

Engaging in laboratory practical activities, developing laboratory practical skills, and, to a degree, even wearing laboratory protective equipment such as safety coats and goggles are all quintessential components of chemistry education. It is becoming quite common for institutions to invest in large-scale chemistry teaching laboratories, filling them with cutting-edge technology, chemicals and apparatus, digital learning tools and laboratory furniture. It is also becoming quite common for educators to develop and execute well considered, research-based approaches to learning and teaching in the laboratory. However, despite such grand and admirable commitments and ambitions, there seems to be little acknowledgment of just how difficult it can be for some to be a room that is so noisy, bright, odorous and surrounded by hazards, risks, chemicals, glassware, electricity, gas, naked flames, eye washes, body showers, fume hoods─the list goes on. While sensory overload issues were once associated with psychiatric mental disorders such as Autism, Schizophrenia, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, it is now becoming known that anyone, regardless of whether they have a psychiatric mental disorder, can experience sensory issues for a variety of reasons. As such, while the chemistry teaching laboratory and all its sense-demanding intricacies might be manageable for some, for other students and instructors akin who experience sensory overload issues, it can be a most-unnerving environment to be in, let alone to think about chemical concepts. The purpose of this Article is to review literature on the concept of sensory overload, consider some research on sensory overload, and identify how this may implicate chemistry laboratory education.