Nitrox instruction

[CCRMichael]

Unfortunayely most wont check for helium... Know i dont cause i dint have an anylizer for that.

Agreed that this is important but it is far more important to confirm you have a "breathable" gas. Meaning there is a safe amount of oxygen in there. A little helium is not going to kill anyone.
With helium prices rising chances are they are not going to just give you a tank with helium in it. They are going to protect that expensive fill at all costs.
Tank with a nitrox sticker on it should not be filled with helium. Tank with a custom mix should be analyzed for helium. All rules about nitrox that can easily be taught in a classroom. No dives needed. If the only thing about nitrox they are learning from the dives is planning. Spend an extra hour in the classroom you would be able to "plan" a lot more than the 2 dives you would plan by going diving.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

OW classes already (or should) make divers aware that there are other gasses out there and they should only breathe air until they get further training. Though I agree that 'industry needs to quit dumbing down instruction', I don't feel not teaching nitrox is part of the dumbing down.

They should be educating the students in how to recognize what they are breathing, otherwise disallowing other gasses is useless... and by the time they are educated to that point, a nitrox curriculum is half taught, so why not just include it in the first place?

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I consider dumbing down instruction as putting to much in a class that all concepts are not covered to fully benefit the student's education. We do teach about the different gasses in the open water class to the point that you do not use it with out the proper training. But I feel if you put too much information in an open water class and the student feels that this is something they will not use for a long time the proper attention will not be given the subject matter.

Its pretty hard to sell that expanding the educational value of a class is dumbing it down, good luck with that.


If you are having trouble educating your students to the point of not being able to include other very basic fundamentals... consider lengthening your classes. You may not pop out a group of certified divers every other day, but in the long run you'll probably have better results anyway.

[Foxmeyer]

Its pretty hard to sell that expanding the educational value of a class is dumbing it down, good luck with that.


If you are having trouble educating your students to the point of not being able to include other very basic fundamentals... consider lengthening your classes. You may not pop out a group of certified divers every other day, but in the long run you'll probably have better results anyway.

We are not a shop Florida where you teach your students in an afternoon. We teach 3 week classes, 2 nights a week, 4 hours a night. Half the class is classroom and half is pool work with skills. The basic fundamentals of nitrox are included (identification and further instruction needed before use), but I would rather stress the important skills needed for open water before you throw them into a nitrox class. As stated before we teach basic fundamentals of what nitrox is and what advantage it gives you for your diving. When a person signs up for an open water class they come into the class with the mindset of not getting themselves drowned. When a person signs up for a nitrox class they already have experience with diving so that they can concentrate on the science of diving nitrox. How much value do you get from a class that puts in so much subject matter you do not have time to do your student education justice. There is value added features that can be added, but there is also a law of diminishing returns.

[graepaep]

What happens if a vacationing tech diver fills a rental tank of 10/70 or 50% for a stage/deco, then gets blown out and returns the rental tank full? Heck with CCR now a days, I bet it's not uncommon to return full tanks.

I think every diver should know how to verify they're breathing safe gas.

They should be educating the students in how to recognize what they are breathing, otherwise disallowing other gasses is useless... and by the time they are educated to that point, a nitrox curriculum is half taught, so why not just include it in the first place?

The fundamental issue here is that divers should only be putting something other that air into a properly marked cylinder. OW students are taught not to use a cylinder marked for something other than air. If OW divers are getting unlabeled cylinders full of trimix or deco gas then it is not because of lack of training on the OW divers end but a failure of the person that filled that cylinder (or removed the label).

I can agree that there is a benefit for every diver that knows how to analyze his/her own gas but I can't see enough benefit for including nitrox in every OW class (analyzing is only a small portion).

I would also be interested in hearing about any case where an OW diver got a tank full of something other than air. Evidence of these failures could be used to push agencies to include analyzing in the OW cirriculum

[Greenwood_60]

Include it in OW, don't include it in OW... does it really matter? The underlying problem is the 'one size fits all' classes, and the for $xxx I'll give you a card so you can buy special gas mentality. I'd love to see an agency or instructor offer a CLEP style Nitrox cert. Not everyone requires a class to learn some basic procedures and formulas.

[Sludge]

My OW class was five weeks long and included fifteen hours of pool work and fifteen hours of class work. How many of you instructors teach like that?

(The money was made not in instruction, but in selling me the gear needed to scuba dive.)

[SuPrBuGmAn]

We are not a shop Florida where you teach your students in an afternoon. We teach 3 week classes, 2 nights a week, 4 hours a night. Half the class is classroom and half is pool work with skills. The basic fundamentals of nitrox are included (identification and further instruction needed before use), but I would rather stress the important skills needed for open water before you throw them into a nitrox class. As stated before we teach basic fundamentals of what nitrox is and what advantage it gives you for your diving. When a person signs up for an open water class they come into the class with the mindset of not getting themselves drowned. When a person signs up for a nitrox class they already have experience with diving so that they can concentrate on the science of diving nitrox. How much value do you get from a class that puts in so much subject matter you do not have time to do your student education justice. There is value added features that can be added, but there is also a law of diminishing returns.

IMO, OW classes should not only be teaching you how not to drown, but also how not to tox out. To do that, they need to know how to analyze, and why they'd tox out - so you'd pretty much be teaching the nitrox class.

The science of nitrox diving? Its a couple formulas, familiarization and utilization of an analyzer, and learning the benefits and downsides of nitrox. Add another day to the class, it should be plenty for even the biggest dolt to understand and memorize. If not, they are probably the weakest link and shouldn't be certified to be doing anything underwater anyway.

The fundamental issue here is that divers should only be putting something other that air into a properly marked cylinder. OW students are taught not to use a cylinder marked for something other than air. If OW divers are getting unlabeled cylinders full of trimix or deco gas then it is not because of lack of training on the OW divers end but a failure of the person that filled that cylinder (or removed the label).

Failure of the person filling or not, its the OW student that ends up with the unintended gas, without the knowledge to analyze whats in it. Tanks get fill ALL the time with different mixes, without special labels. Even the ones with labels get filled incorrectly.

I can agree that there is a benefit for every diver that knows how to analyze his/her own gas but I can't see enough benefit for including nitrox in every OW class (analyzing is only a small portion).

You've already taught that there are other gases, you've already taught how to analyze, why not go the small extra step in explaining the benefits of nitrox mixtures and a few extra equations?





There simply isn't alot to a nitrox class, there's no reason it can't be included in an OW class. There's a reason they let any peon divemaster teach it, ya don't even have to be a peon instructor

[Kevin Carlisle]

Thanks for telling me I have failed as an instructor! LOL
Maybe when you get a bit more experience teaching you'll think differently.
Not all students learn in the classroom...there are different learning modalities.
And my point was that even though they can learn things intellectually in the classroom, it doesn't sink in viscerally until their lives depend on it.

So, what exactly do you do different in the water when diving nitrox?

[tursiops]

Is this a real question? You don't go too deep, you stay down longer. Jeez.

But I'm not even talking about *in* the water. I'm talking about analyzing and planning....because if you are about to go into the water you take the analysis and the planning much more seriously. There is no serious downside to a bad analysis in the classroom.