Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2011! It's going to be a great year for IPM here in Nebraska! Just a preview of some of the events or projects to come:

  1. IPM in Schools Process Video: In March we'll be filming a video that outlines the general IPM demonstration school process, including meeting with school staff, administration, and the PMP and visiting vulnerable areas within the school. The video's target will be to introduce IPM to other schools and school districts around the state or even nationwide!

  2. IPM Manual Revision: The University of Nebraska will be revising its IPM in Schools: Easy as ABC manual to include updates about school IPM as well as IPM in other sensitive environments such as child care centers, nursing homes, or hospitals.

  3. Four coalition meetings: The Urban Pest Management Conference (Feb 8-9); April 27, July 27, and Oct 26 will be the dates for our coalition meetings this year. We hope to do at least one of these as a half day, educational meeting with lunch and numerous speakers.

  4. Demonstration Schools: We plan to finish our OPS and LPS demonstration projects this year and possibly begin a new one with Nebraska City Public Schools

  5. Child Care: We have been interested in getting involved in Child Care IPM and have had the good fortune to meet some enthusiastic individuals who work with child care providers. These individuals have joined our coalition and are going to work with us to arrange in-services to teach child care providers about IPM.

  6. Youth Programs: I will continue work with youth this year, including an evaluation project about Pest Private Eye that Clyde and I will conduct with a Nebraska middle school science club. I also will begin exploring the development of an "IPM Questing Project." More on this in the future!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Erin,
    amazing website on IPM in Schools. I am an IPM professional, and have been focusing on IPM in Schools though my main work was in low income housing.
    Would like to communicate with you by e-mail.
    Your presentation on IPM is exceptional as it truly covers all the important elements. Most in the urban area do not. I saw your manual fro another link and think it is very very thorough.. the stuff i read on roaches was superb. I noted that bed bugs are not included in the manual but you are revising it .. would love to see your bed bug section and offer review comments . and also learn from your treatment of the subject. good policies on bed bugs in schools are rare and some are quite reactive. I did see an excellent policy from Michigan., I see support of children who come from infested homes as being key in the how schools handled the issue. Treatment in the school environment is fairly easy compared to the home environment, but providing support to kids is key i think. I am not sure that many school boards have good policies on this.,
    if you could send me an e-mail so we could communicate, i would be grateful.
    I have been talking a lot to Allie Teasley who also has done wonderful work in the area.
    Sam Bryks, M.Sc. B.C.E.
    IPM Consultancy
    Toronto Canada
    sbryks@gmail.com

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  2. Thanks, Sam! Yes, we are planning to add bed bugs to our next revision of the manual! Glad to hear you like the blog!

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