UC Health & Safety in Field Activities
Course Work or Independent Research, Group or Sole

Intended audience: GEOG staff, visitors, and research students.

 

When engaging in field activity you must ask yourself ‘Am I leading a group or working alone?’, then ‘What are the potential hazards and levels of risk?’, and finally ‘If things go wrong, who will know and what more could I have done?’. Common sense and good judgement are required - if in doubt speak to your supervisor/manager /HoD, as these are the people responsible for sign off.

 

For staff leading course work with recurrent group field activities, Geography has a form bank in the departmental ‘staff only’ drop box K:\Health_Safety\Field_Activities.

 

For staff or students leading independent research with either group or sole field activities, current documentation and guidelines are available in the UC H&S Toolkit, under Hazard Management> Field Activity – Group or Sole.

Step by step guide to planning for a safe field activity.

(the documents referred to below are in the UC H&S Toolkit)

Read these:

1.       Protocol for University Field Activities: definitions, scope, roles and responsibilities.

2.       Field Activity Risk Matrix - Group or Sole: examples that help determine the required documentation for group or individual field activity.

 

For each field activity complete the following:

·         Field Activity Plan: hazard risk assessment and management, details such as time and location, emergency contacts and response, participant health, safety equipment.

·         Leader Health Declaration and Consent: Provides UC with contact details, medical & dietary conditions, fitness to lead.

>>> Having signed off your Field Activity Plan and Leader forms with your HoD (staff) or academic supervisor (students), please email these as attachments to:

>>>  geog-field-intentions@canterbury.ac.nz <<<

 

·         Field Activity Participant Consent: Provides the field activity Leader with participant contact details, medical & dietary conditions, next of kin, H&S skills, and signoff on responsibilities and expectations.

>>> Return to the field activity Leader.

 

For each field trip complete the following:

·         Checklist-Activity Briefing: per trip time, location and route, known hazards, emergency response plan, list of actual participants.

>>> Whenever you go, please let us know by emailing this as an attachment to:

>>> geog-field-intentions@canterbury.ac.nz <<<

 

- John Thyne, Geography Department Safety Officer, 7/7/2011

http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/safety/Field_Activities_GEOG.*