The Safety Training Net - Feb. '22
Escape Rooms for Safety Training, Sandbox Event, Safety & Health Events in February & March to Use in Safety Training, Meet the Subscriber - Marilyn Hubner, and Ask the Expert - Will Thalheimer
Escape Rooms
Escape Rooms, in-person or virtual, create a game situation where participants must work together to solve various challenges in order to complete a common goal, and that goal is usually to "escape" from the room. Reading this description, you might have had a lightbulb moment and realized how closely this description of escape rooms aligns with games and activities used in safety training.
First, escape rooms are team activities and if you've been following SafetyFUNdamentals for a while, you know the value of teamwork in learning activities. One of the key parts of accelerated learning principles is collaboration and learning from peers. Escape rooms are usually designed so that participants need to rely on and learn from each other in order to be successful.
Next, the escape room requires participants to solve various challenges. It quickly becomes apparent that some escape room team members have strengths that others may not. These strengths may be based on experience, education or something else entirely. When using team-based training activities, the same benefits occur. If a training activity is focused on hazard recognition, one team member might be better at recognizing ergonomic hazards and another may be an expert in chemical safety but these individuals working together will allow the team to accomplish more and the team will be stronger.
Escape room participants have a common goal - to escape the room, either virtually or real enclosed space. Training classes also have a common goal, or at least should, and this is to meet the training class objectives.
To use escape rooms as a safety training activity, it's recommended to design the game so all activities and challenges tie to the safety training topic. Of course, you could add a simple puzzle for the sake of adding in a challenge but safety training class time is usually limited so these non-class related activities can be fun but will not add true value.
Review the infographic below to get started.
Note: The VIP version of The Safety Training Net will include a complete Escape Room Game for Fire Safety Training. It’s not too late to upgrade. Just click the subscribe button below.
Meet the Subscriber - Marilyn Hubner
Significant Safety & Health Events in March
f you read last month’s newsletter, you know that VIP Subscribers received a complete calendar of safety and health events that are of importance in health and safety. The January issue described methods for using these events in safety training classes, especially as lessons-learned activities. Since this newsletter comes out late in the month, I am going to jump ahead and list March’s events in case you want to use any of these as an activity during March training classes.
Significant March Events
Devastating Tsunami in Northeastern Japan (2011)
Triangle Shirtwaist Company Factory Fire (1911)
Partial Melt-Down at Three Mile Island (1979)
FEMA Created (1979)
Other Suggested Training Topics for March
Head Safety (It's the Brain Injury Association of America's Brain Injury Awareness Month)
Wellness (It's the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics National Nutrition Month)
Eye Protection (It's Prevent Blindness America's Workplace Eye Wellness Month)
Ladder Safety (It's the American Ladder Institute's National Ladder Safety Month)
Chemical Safety (It's the United States Department of Health & Human Services National Poison Prevention Month)
From the above list of historical events, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is one that easily lends itself to a safety training class on fire safety. Read up on the history of this fire (or any of the events listed) and you will be able to identify many things that went wrong and that could have prevented this tragedy. Consider sharing the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire with trainees and ask them to identify the hazards and the corrective actions that should have been in place. The discussion can be taken a step further and trainees can be asked to identify where those corrective measures are applied in their workplace. (If you need more safety training activities related to fire safety, the Five for Fire eBook is available on the SafetyFUNdamentals website).
The first-ever Safety Training Sandbox was held last month. Special thanks to Michael W. from Maryland, Joey S. from Hawaii, Tina A. from Alabama, and Nicki O. from Montana for their active participation! We’ll be doing this again on March 11th but a little later in the day (5 PM EST). We can discuss whatever everyone likes but I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on Escape Rooms for Safety Training as discussed above. I’ll send the link right before we start. Hope you can make it!
Ask the Expert
Just a few days away…
I’ll be speaking on March 2nd on ways to make your safety training stick. If any subscribers are planning to attend, please let me know. It would be great to meet in person if we don’t know each other yet!
PS - If you are not registered yet, you can sign up using discount code 8899 to receive a 20% discount. You can register online or by phone at (800) 824-6885.
Book Update
For those of you following along with my book progress, “Make Your Safety Training Stick: Improve Retention and Get Better Results,” I am happy to report that all of the requested changes made by the editor have been made and it is now being typeset and the cover is being created by the publisher. I am hopeful that it might actually be available by ASSP’s PDC in June! Fingers crossed! 🤞🏻
A Few Links for You
Check out this interactive map of world disasters. Not quite a world disaster, but you might want to check out this story too about what not to do when melting snow. Finally, since the previous two links might have you thinking about living somewhere else, check out what that would be like here.
One last thing…
You may know that I publish a separate bi-monthly version of this newsletter in Spanish. You can subscribe to that separately, or you can now simply check out the current and past issues from the main Safety Training Net homepage. At the top of the page you will see different tabs for different sections. I have duplicated the Spanish editions and collected them here if you ever want to take a look.
Thanks for reading to the end! Please share The Safety Training Net with anyone who might be interested in receiving safety training resources every month.