Do you like your eyes?  How about your fingers and your skin?  Do you want to keep them while you figure out the mysteries of the world?  Of course you do!  Your senses are one of the things that make you a good scientist.  You need them to see and push and smell and look good when you tell everyone about what you found.  Science is all about the senses.  So while you are working in the lab, let's see how you can take care of your best scientific tool: your body.  We will make sure that we do not burn a nose hair. 

In science things can blow up.  Wait, let me try that again.  In science, things can blow up . . . if you aren't careful.  When mixing different things to find how they act together, it's not always a good idea to know WHAT you are mixing, but also HOW MUCH you are mixing.  A scale is a tool used to find out how much something weighs.  By weighing each thing in your experiment, you will be sure to know what you are mixing.  This can stop things from blowing up in your face.  Still have your eyes?  Check!  Let's move on.

Looks like this scale needs to put on a little weight.

Batholith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Now that you know you have the right amount of stuff, it's important to know that you have the RIGHT stuff.  So, let's make sure to wash everything so there isn't anything left from the last test you did.  A beaker is a round glass that's used to measure things in labs.  It is very useful to safely pour and mix things, but only if it's clean.  If it isn't clean, you don't know what you're mixing and it could get ugly.  There may also be germs left over from the last person who used the glass in there that can hurt you.  Clean glass?  Check!  Let's move on.

What ever you do, don't drop the beaker!

Just because you cleaned your beakers and weighed and measured everything twice, does not mean you are safe.  Not yet.  A lot of the things we talk about in science cannot be seen with just your eyes.  From the building blocks that make up our world to the laws of motion, we cannot always see what's going on.  A microscope is a tool that magnifies very small things so that you can see them better.  Think of it as a telescope for really small things.  It can make tiny things appear hundreds of times bigger!  What is that wiggling down there?  Is it a little shaking hair?  Or is it a virus that will kill us all?  Good thing you have your microscope.  Still have your health?  Great!  Let's move on.  

I think this microscope is staring at me.

jd, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As a scientist, it's your job to figure out how the world works.  The best way to do that is to start with taking care of the lab and people you work with.  Responsibility is the idea that people will look out for each other to make sure everyone is safe.  This means weighing things with your scale so you know you have the right amount.  This means before mixing the measured things in your beaker, you must wash it to make sure that things from other tests do not mix with this one.  It also means knowing everything that you are working with, including some of the smallest things, which you are able to see with your microscope.  This way you can take care of your eyes, your fingers, and your health.  Snfffff.  What is that smell?  Not singed nose hairs . . . That's the smell of a clean, safe lab.