FEBRUARY 27, 2015
BILLINGS, MONTANA
Two Sandstone Elementary students and others were injured
Friday afternoon when a glass container used in an science experiment
demonstration exploded.
According to school officials, a Rocky Mountain College
instructor and two graduate students were showing a group of elementary
students the experiment on the playground around 2:15 pm when the explosion
occurred. The instructor and one grad student also were injured.
The instructor and grad students "were showing an
experiment that they have done countless times but this time something went
wrong with the experiment causing a glass container to explode,"
Superintendent Terry Bouck said in an email to school board members sent at
3:15 p.m.
School officials said none of the injuries were
life-threatening.
"There were no harmful chemicals, but the glass shards
did injure the RMC instructor, one RMC graduate student, and two elementary
students," Bouck said in the email. "The students were injured from
the glass flying to where they were located watching the experiment."
Emergency crews and ambulances were called to the school, as
were the parents of the injured students, Bouck said. School officials were
working to notify the parents of group of students involved in the incident, he
said.
The scientific demonstration involved a liquid changing
color and had been performed at other schools in past years.
Bouck said an investigation will try to determine what
happened and how to prevent it. He is not sure if a chemical reaction
caused the beaker to break or if it was dropped.
He says School District 2 has a long-standing parterneship
with Rocky Mountain College.