Kent State University students and employees review
safety videos created by students in the Occupational
Health and Safety class taught by Charles Hart, Ph.D.,
associate professor of environmental health at Kent State.

What is the proper way to handle a fire extinguisher? What are you supposed to do if you get hurt in an on-campus kitchen? What kind of clothes are you required to wear when you’re using a Weed Eater?

Charles Hart, Ph.D., associate professor of environmental health in Kent State University’s College of Public Health, tasked students in his Occupational Health and Safety course with a unique class project last semester that involved answering all these questions and educating others. This class created three safety videos for Kent State student workers and employees across the campus.

Each group of students created a specialized safety video for a specific partner: Kent State Dining Services, University Facilities Management, and a general safety video for all student employees. Each group then conducted interviews, gathered information, created a PowerPoint presentation and filmed student workers using proper protocol.

Hart, in conjunction with Environmental Health and Safety, University Facilities Management and Dining Services, created this project for the students in his class.

“I wanted the students to do a project that would be similar to something they would do in the real world,” says Hart. “Part of the project was helping them to develop job skills and to learn to work with a group in creating a project.”

Each of the videos was approximately 15 to 20 minutes in length. They all were a combination of PowerPoint slides, pictures and videos featuring actual Kent State employees participating in the safety acts described in the slides.

Dylan Roddy, a senior public health major, was on the group that made the general safety video.

“It was a great experience,” Roddy says. “I felt that by assigning us this project, it not only gave us a chance to show what we learned, but it allowed us to help student workers and staff with Kent State safety procedures.”

Dennis Baden, manager of Environmental Health and Safety at Kent State, was very satisfied with the results.

“I think the videos were great. This was something I wanted to create for quite some time,” says Baden. “They allow the training to be more consistent from department to department and also provide an easy way to track who’s taking the training.”

Baden and the Environmental Health and Safety office are working on getting the videos onto Flash Train, which is a web-based training program for student employees. The videos provide an alternative way for the office to assign safety training for student workers.

If your department would like to have a safety video made by the Environmental Health and Safety students, contact Hart at 330-672-6519 or chart18@kent.edu, or contact Baden at dbaden@kent.edu.

For more information about the Environmental Health Sciences program in the College of Public Health, visit www.kent.edu/publichealth/programs/undergraduate/EHS/index.cfm.