This Tuesday April 28th marks a national day of mourning for workers who were injured or killed on the job. You may have seen some commercials on TV for this day. Before you begin co-op you are required to complete two health and safety tests and some students take additional working at heights training to prepare for their jobs. We have some discussions of hazards at the workplace as well. At our integration day in March we were going to discuss workplace safety in more detail leading up to Safety Awareness Week in April. Alas, integration day didn’t happen so I decided to make up this week’s assignment with Workplace Health and Safety in mind.
FIRST SOME BACKGROUND FOR YOU: Below you will see one chart and a link to another chart. The chart should look familiar to you from WHMIS. It is the WHMIS Hazardous Symbols chart. The other link I’d like you to click on and open has some sobering facts about workers who are injured or killed on the job site. It comes from a website called Mysafework by Rob Ellis. Mr. Ellis lost his young son to a workplace accident and has been on an education crusade ever since to help prevent workplace accidents. Please look both documents over and become familiar with what is on them. http://mysafework.com/facts/
WHAT DO I DO NOW? After you’ve looked over the documents I’d like you to create a health and safety workplace poster. You have a lot of options here. You can use google draw, MSpaint, Gimp, Canva, or any other computer program that you are comfortable using. IF you are not comfortable making a poster on the computer or are limited by technology, you can make one by hand (such as a poster board) and take a picture of it and send it to me via email. You can cut and paste images from online and use markers or some other medium to write something on your poster. Be creative.
What to include:
Heading: It should have a heading. For example STAY SAFE AT WORK, HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK, APRIL 28th Day of Mourning, THINK BEFORE YOU WORK, KNOW THE HAZARDS, ….just about anything that has to do with safety in the workplace.
At least 2 facts from the mysafework fact sheet (more is fine)
At least 2 hazardous symbols from the WHMIS symbols chart
It should have some colour on it
I used a program called GIMP to do this example. Yes my husband helped me :) You have to download the program to use it and it’s similar to photoshop. Do not feel that you have to use this program, I’m just providing an example.
Alternate assignment ONLY IF YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT do the poster. Please write up the answers to these questions in complete sentences and give me as much detail as you can. Even if you personally have not encountered any hazards at co-op, think about what potential hazards there could be at work.
Pick 3 hazard symbols and explain what they mean.
Think of 3 possible hazards that you may encounter at your co-op. Tell me what the hazard is specifically (fire, biohazard etc) and how you may encounter it.
What can you do to stay safe and avoid or prevent hazards at your co-op.