two field workers in jackets and headnets amid spruce trees on a steep slope.

Field Safety Toolkit

Field safety is a crucial component to broadening representation in field-based science. Field work can be a rewarding and formative experience, but it also has unique challenges including long hours, isolation, and potentially hazardous conditions and wildlife. 

In this toolkit we provide information and resources related to safety in the field including relevant training, documentation, reporting, and readings that help us understand the variety of barriers and challenges in the field. 

Field Safety Resources:

Review our field safety resource library:

Field Inclusive, Inc.

Learning and being aware of various social field safety issues that could arise for people who professionally work outdoors — but more specifically — for marginalized and historically excluded individuals is our goal. Social Field Safety Workshops cover the history of minorities in the outdoors, group brainstorming activities, and group discussions about solutions to common social field safety scenarios that could impact certain groups of individuals.

Creators:  Field Inclusive, Inc. personnel 
Wilderness First Aid Training and Courses

Designed for scouts and scout leaders, outdoor enthusiasts and anyone who works or spends time in remote environments, this course teaches advanced skills to be used in emergencies when help from professional first responders may be far away. Based on the Boy Scouts of America Wilderness First Aid Curriculum and Doctrine Guidelines, this course aligns with OSHA’s Best Practices for Workplace First Aid Training Programs.

Creators:  American Red Cross personnel 
Elements of a Field Safety Plan

UC Santa Barbara lists key elements of a field safety plan with links to other resources, including a field safety plan template.

Creators:  Environmental Health & Safety 
INTERACT Fieldwork Planning Handbook

The INTERACT Fieldwork Planning Handbook covers all aspects of fieldwork, from the initial idea, to the actual fieldwork, through to getting safely back home with samples and data to wrap up the project. A particular focus is put on all aspects of planning until you venture into the field and safety aspects when working at INTERACT stations or in the field.

Creators:  Fiona Tummon, Andrea Schneider, Julie Bull, Gwenaëlle Gremion, Gabriela Roldan, Morgan Seag, Ruth Vingerhagen Hindshaw 
Field Safety Manual

An example of a fieldwork safety manual from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University Pittsburg.

Creators:  Sara Kuebbing, David Clark, Burhan Gharaibeh, Mary Janecka, Kevin Kohl, Rachael Kramp, Michel Ohmer, Castilleja Olmsted, Karen Peralta Martinez, Tessa Rhinehart, Elizabeth Rudzki, Martin M. Turcotte, Corinne Richards-Zawacki 
Field Code of Conduct

The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) has developed a sample code of conduct and bill of rights that can be modified for your field site.

Creators:  Association of Polar Early Career Scientists personnel 
Safe fieldwork strategies for at-risk individuals, their supervisors and institutions

Certain individuals are at higher risk for conflict and violence when they are in the field due to prejudice against their race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, and/or religion. This paper provides strategies for acknowledging and reducing the risk of conflict.

Creators:  Amelia-Juliette Claire Demery, Monique Avery Pipkin 
The Fieldwork Initiative

The Fieldwork Initiative is a grassroots network of over 3,500 students and researchers facing trauma, unsafe conditions, or sexual harassment and assault during research fieldwork. The Fieldwork Initiative seeks to maintain a network for victims who have struggled with gendered violence while conducting research and to proliferate pre-fieldwork training seminars that break open the blackbox of data collection.

Creators:  The Fieldwork Initiative 
Field Team Leadership: Strategies for Successful Field Work

A list of what I do as a field team leader to achieve a happy, comfortable, and safe field team, and some tips on how to contribute to a happy, productive and safe field team as a field team participant.

Creators:  Erin Pettit 
Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace: Resources for Targets and their Allies from Early Career Ecologists

An article to increase awareness of the prevalence of bullying and harassment in the workplace, and to provide compiled resources on the topic.

Creators:  Jessica Miesel 

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