IPM Website updated!

Here at the Pesticide Education Office, we've been working recently on updating our website to fit the style of the new UNL template, and in the process have reorganized the content, including integrating our old IPM website into this new Pesticide Safety Education Program one. Please check out the new site: http://pested.unl.edu/schoolipm!

Science Cadre

Clyde and I have been discussing ways to better get the word out about our educational video game, Pest Private Eye, which teaches children and educators who work with them about IPM.

Now that the game is complete and in its final version, we would like to do a small project working with Nebraska elementary/middle school teachers in the classroom, using the game to teach IPM as part of the science curriculum. We would give teachers copies of the game for their students to play, then follow up with an in-classroom activity/survey about what they learned based on the Nebraska/National Science standards.

After contacting some ESU (Educational Service Units) around the state, we were invited yesterday to attend a "Science Cadre" at ESU9 consisting of science teachers in Hastings and surrounding towns. I presented about IPM and then demoed the game, explaining how we'd love to work with them on a project in the classroom. There were several questions about IPM and the game and also interest in doing the project! We look forward to using the game to further educate both children and teachers about IPM! Stay tuned for more info on this project as it progresses.

October 6th Coalition Meeting

We had our fourth IPM coalition meeting of 2010 yesterday. We were joined by OPS and LPS, as well as EPA, UNL Extension, tribal, Nebraska Department of Ag, and pest management professional representatives.

Our guest speaker was Tom Green, who is president of the IPM Institute in Madison, WI. He discussed details about the process for a school to become IPM Star Certified, including maintaining records, working with the PMP to use IPM methods rather than routine spray applications, and generally controlling pests such as cockroaches and mice and improving conducive conditions to discourage pests. The IPM Star certification includes an on-site visit from a 3rd party professional who evaluates the school and provides them with a written list of recommendations. The school then addresses any deficiencies the evaluator has noted and contacts the IPM Institute for certification. Schools must score 70% on the evaluation to be certified, and certification lasts for 3 years. It must be renewed with a follow up visit after that time.

Tom also talked about Green Shield certification, which is an IPM Star approach to certifying pest management professionals. For more information about IPM Star and Green Shield, visit http://ipmstar.org and http://www.greenshieldcertified.org/providers/

After Tom's presentation, we discussed the August in-service presentations Clyde, Barb, Stephen and I did for LPS and OPS (custodial and/or food service staff), the second visits (Sept 9 for OPS and Sept 23 for LPS) and the planned third demonstration visits (Dec 9 for OPS and Feb 2, 2011 for LPS) Additional IPM and pest (bed bug) training are slated for November 11 (IAQ group) and November 19 (Infection Control group) for LPS.

Mike Daniels then gave a brief overview of the Healthy Tribal Communities training that was held in Sioux City. He said there were 32 attendees and he felt it was a success.

Coalition meetings for next year have been set: Feb 7/8 (Urban Pest Management conference), April 27, July 27, and Oct 26. There was discussion about possibly having half day educational events rather than the two hour meetings we have been doing. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach, so we'll be evaluating coalition member thoughts and suggestions before making a decision.

Bed bugs were also a topic of discussion (when is it not these days, especially with New York City practically overrun and many other places not far behind!).Barb mentioned that she and Clyde will be giving three bed bug workshops for landlords in October and November. Oct 20 will be in Lincoln, Nov 15 in Grand Island, and November 17 in Omaha. See http://ianrnews.unl.edu/static/1010040.shtml for sign up information. As part of the training (at the Omaha and Lincoln location), they will be featuring Spots, a bed bug sniffing dog owned by James and Amy Pelowski in Lincoln. To learn more about Spots' services, check out their website, K-9 BedBug Detection at http://www.k9bedbugdetect.com/ .

Orlando and Lovebugs

I just got back from a wonderful vacation in Orlando...visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and had some Butterbeer (cream soda with butterscotch and vanilla); got soaked on the Popeye river raft ride; and fed the dolphins at SeaWorld!

The weather was warm and humid (about 90 degrees in late September) and I admit that I wondered if I'd find any interesting insects while in FL. I never can stray too far from my entomological fascination :-) I wasn't disappointed! When we landed, my friends and I were immediately struck when we looked out the plane window and saw millions of what looked like some kind of hemiptera flying around and also appearing on all the windows at the airport. It was an invasion! Intrigued (well, at least I was!), my friends and I quizzed the locals, who informed us that these pesky insects were "lovebugs" and that their nuisance expands beyond their large, annoying numbers to actually damaging property...the paint on cars! Motorists are encouraged to wash their cars soon after running through lovebug infested areas as these little pests can literally ruin car paint if left too long.

Of course upon my return from FL I read a bit about lovebugs and found out they are actually flies rather than true bugs and that they have mating flights twice a year, one being...ta da...August and September. Luckily they do not bite or sting, but definitely cause a mess for cars, planes, and people who may be in their way. Read more about these pests at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/MG/MG06800.pdf and http://www.floridaenvironment.com/programs/fe00508.htm. Apparently there are a lot of predators that eat the larvae and help keep the population down. The larvae don't actually cause much of a problem (and in fact can aid in some plant growth), but the less larvae there are, the less adults that can cause a mess! A little bit of biological control IPM going on there!!

LPS Second Visit

On Sept 23, Clyde, Barb and I began our second visit to the Lincoln demonstration school by meeting with the staff, which included the principal, operations manager, head custodian, director of food services, and two PMPs, including the technician who services the school. We discussed that we'd be checking traps set last time and visiting vulnerable areas. We also talked about the recordkeeping process they have in place. Currently, this school keeps a pest log in the custodial office, but they are likely going to make a second set of pest sighting sheets available in the main office to simplify the pest reporting process for staff.

After the short discussion, we made our way to visit the food storage and kitchen areas, home ec, staff lounge, boiler room, and custodial closets/offices.

Food storage was good about primarily using open metal shelves! They did have a few wooden pallets and lots of cardboard boxes, but the area was clean, neat, and dry. We recommended they just discard the pallets and reduce the cardboard.

The kitchen is a pest vulnerable area, as we have seen in visits to many other schools, and we did find traps with Orientals and Germans, as well as a German cockroach hiding behind a bulletin board! We gave them similar recommendations as OPS of deep cleaning everything (behind and beneath equipment, floors, drains, etc.), caulking around the bulletin boards, and setting out more traps to continue monitoring.

The staff lounge was in overall good shape...the traps primarily had incidentals but we had found some mouse droppings under a sink last time, so encouraged them to put out snap traps.

The Home ec room looked good...sinks were clean underneath with no storage of pesticide, and stoves, sinks, etc. were clean overall.


In the boiler room, we saw two live wolf spiders...as big as half my thumb! I got this great picture of one before Clyde started telling me it would jump on me. I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but I wasn't taking any chances :-) so I moved back and let someone perform some "mechanical" IPM on the spider with his shoe! We also saw some dead Orientals on the floor, a bag with pop cans, and various areas with debris and dirt. We encouraged the school to address an area of standing water near the water softener, especially since Orientals love and thrive on lots of moisture.

We looked at several custodial closets and with the exception of some clutter/debris and some cans of pesticide that we recommended they remove, they were in good shape. Mops were hung, trash bags were changed daily, and most buckets were dry.

The LPS school, like OPS, is well on its way to implementing their IPM program. Both schools have or will be receiving recommendations after this second visit that will help guide them in the process.

Healthy Tribal Communities Training

September 14th brought Clyde, Barb, and myself from UNL, Mark from IA State, Jim and Jon from South Dakota State, and Sue Ratcliffe from Illinois to Sioux City, IA to provide training on IPM to tribes in EPA region 7. Mike Daniels, who has joined us in both our South Dakota and Nebraska IPM in Schools projects, organized the training with the help of Dick Wiechman from EPA.

The agenda included talks on general IPM, pest ID, pest species (cockroaches, ants, flies, bed bugs, rodents, and head lice), pesticides and pesticide labels, and recordkeeping.

Following the presentations, we took the group of about 35 people, representing tribes from several states, to a local high school, where we did a walkthrough of the kitchen, home ec room, special ed room, custodial area, and perimeter. It was a great educational opportunity to teach the participants about IPM and what process we have followed when visiting schools. We showed them particular conducive conditions and vulnerable areas and what pests might be common in those situations. We hope they are able to take what they learned into their own school systems and practice IPM!

Second IPM Visit to Omaha Public Schools

On Sept 9, we visited our OPS demonstration school for the second time. Clyde, Barb, Stephen and I met with administration and staff to discuss how they were progressing on developing a recordkeeping book. They are going to create a print notebook that will either be housed with the IPM coordinator or in the main office that both the staff and the pest management professional can access. The principal mentioned that she will also send information about it out on a school listserv to make staff aware that they can report pest sightings.

After these discussions we visited the kitchen, staff lounge, food storage area, custodial closets and other areas we had seen during the first visit. There is still a roach problem (primarily German in the kitchen and primarily Oriental in the boiler room) and we gave recommendations on how to approach this issue. We were very pleased to see that the Roach prufe that had been applied under Home Ec sinks had been removed. We encouraged the head custodian (IPM Coordinator) to also remove other pesticides, such as Raid, from the facility. We also checked sticky traps and noted what pests were found and replaced with new traps in the same areas to continue monitoring.

Outside, Stephen gave advice on how to better "insulate" portable classrooms from wildlife and rodents, including using hardcloth, sealing holes, and putting crushed gravel or other appropriate materials around foundations where there are gaps.

We will be sending out written recommendations soon...some of them are general practices we have told other schools...remove pesticides such as Raid, check entryways and replace doorsweeps where necessary, reduce moisture and clutter, and increase sanitation in vulnerable areas.


At the tail end of our visit, we also found a great biological control, a Chinese praying mantis, who was in the landscape. I took him home for a few days, then let him go on some bushes at UNL :-)