[BlindMath] Question about electronics safety in the lab

[Sabra Ewing]

I am trying to help a blind person on Facebook who has a question about using her iPad and a science lab. She has a science major and will be doing a lot of lab related work, but the college is saying that she can't use her iPad in the lab because of safety issues. A lot of people on the thread got very mad, miss quoted laws, and was all saying that the college is trying to deny any education. The people on the thread got mad at me for saying that even if the college did have a bad track record in the past, they might not actually be making this one up. There really could be a safety risk with having electronics devices in a laboratory. On the other hand, they can't just say that you can't have access to the information, so what do you do? I know that electricity is used in the labs all the time, but I can see how having something like an iPad with you on the lab table could get kind of risky. I thought about maybe that she could keep the device in another room and just switch between that one in the lab, but then that can be kind of hard if you needed to take notes or access information while working with chemicals at the same time. It says very clearly on many of these electrical devices that you are not supposed to use them near flaming liquids or chemicals, and some labs could meet that requirement. Even when I was in high school, they said that I could not have electronics with me in the lab area, but high school is nothing like a college environment. I was doing some research and apparently, there are specially certified electronics that are certified to be around flame and not produce a small electrical sparks that could start a fire, but I don't know if the iPad is one of those devices and if not, is there a computer or a tablet or a keyboard or something else that is one of those certified devices that you could use instead. Or would that not matter at all because maybe they are saying they don't want you bringing your own electronics into the lab because they are worried about chemical or bacterial contamination from the same device switching between the lab and the rest of the school like if you are growing a virus or something, you get the virus on your device, and then you spread it. Or maybe tiny chemical particles get into the device without you realizing it, and then you plug it in or something and there is a reaction. I would like to think that maybe they aren't using such dangerous chemicals in a college setting, but maybe they are. I know for sure that the most dangerous part is definitely the battery because even if it's not plugged in, chemicals could still get in there and it could react with the battery. So are there actually legitimate concerns here, or is the college just implementing a very inflexible policy that they are refusing to adjust for a person with a disability?

Sabra Ewing