Glass bottle explosion injures students, chemistry teacher at Southport High School

The really terrifying aspect of this story to me is that I've taught in that science lab.

It's a great lab space, huge and light and airy. It's a single lab space that all of the Southport High School science teachers share and that I've used to teach our summer ASM camps. I'm hopeful that Mark Duncan - who was a great host to us for our camp - isn't the teacher mentioned in the various stories. He was more of a physics than a chemistry teacher, but none of the articles mention the teacher by name, so I can't say for certain whether Mark was or wasn't involved.

Source - msn

The woosh bottle is a demonstration that I've done countless times throughout my career. It involves putting an amount of alcohol - typically about twenty milliliters of ethyl alcohol, though other alcohols can be used - into a large bottle. The bottle is then sealed with a hand and rolled around to allow the alcohol to evaporate. The bottle is temporarily capped - in my case with a 250 mL beaker - and a source of ignition is introduced into the bottle when the cap is removed. I've used lighters or matches held by tongs or by my fingers. Early in my career, I even let a student drop the match into the bottle.

Source - The Journal Rewired

I use plastic bottles and now put the bottle behind a safety shield because of an incident I had once where the plastic bottle fell off of the lab table onto the floor in front of students sitting too nearby for my comfort. The plastic bottle is hopefully more safe than the glass bottle from the Southport story, and the safety shield makes sure that any consequences of an explosion would stay toward the demonstrator (me) and not toward the students.

...but every demonstration deserves to be reevaluated from time to time to decide if it's a demonstration worth doing. If the safety risks outweigh the educational benefits or not.