SF students mistake poison for candy

[The Northerner]

(01-13) 14:51 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Seven San Francisco middle school students were taken to hospitals today after ingesting small amounts of rat poison they found on top of a classroom filing cabinet, thinking the single blue cube was candy, fire officials said.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. students, who showed no symptoms other than fear, were transported to three local hospitals, but were not expected to suffer any harmful consequences, said Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmidge.

Talmidge said one of the students found the small cube and took a little nibble and told classmates it tasted like a cookie.

Six others, boys and girls ranging in age from 10 to 12, then licked or bit pieces of the 1.5-inch cube of poison and either swallowed or spit it out.

"One of the young ladies who participated in it apparently realized it wasn't a good thing to do," Talmidge said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/13/BABF1H8LR2.DTL

[Very_Boring_Name]

1. Lesson learned. Don't touch what doesn't belong to you.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. Lesson 2 - don't eat it if you don't know what it is

[Very_Boring_Name]

7. Tastes like... burning

[petronius]

2. Is our children learning?

Got to give them credit though: they observed an unknown in the environment, formulated a hypothesis (candy!), tested it (tasty!), and reached a conclusion. Nice application of the scientific method, even if the conclusion was wrong.

Not only that, they apparently decided to share, even though the resource was so small. Good kids!

:)

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Want to know what rat poison was doing in a classroom...

OSHA rules for safety would prohibit this, unless placed in the classroom in an appropriate spot...but on top of a filing cabinet?

Had that been my classroom, (and am a teacher), would be up shit creek for exposing my students to this, even more, just for having it in the classroom in an open and accessible area.

There has to be more to this story...maybe?

[surrealAmerican]

4. I wonder if the teacher knew it was there.

This is, of course, the main question: why was rat poison left where children could get to it?

[HuckleB]

6. This has been happening for time immemorial, in chemistry classrooms around the world.

I guess what's different is that it makes the news now.