Greetings IPMers! Clyde and I just returned from the 7th International IPM Symposium, which is held every three years. For 2012, it was held in Memphis, TN (home of Elvis Presley's Graceland, shown above!)
When I say international, I mean international! I enjoyed the opportunity to meet or participate in presentations given by people from many different countries, including New Zealand, Israel, Japan, Scotland, Germany, and India!
Clyde and I each gave two presentations, the first of which was a joint session with Darrel Deneke from South Dakota and Anastasia Becker from Missouri about IPM in Schools demonstration projects. We had a great turnout (no small feat since during each time period there were about 6 concurrent sessions to choose from!) and lots of feedback. During the session we talked about Nebraska's work with the Omaha and Lincoln Public Schools as well as the tribal work with Winnebago and Macy schools. Darrell and Anastasia then talked about the projects in their states, including the work in South Dakota that involved Clyde, Mark Shour from IA State, Darrell, Jim Wilson from SD, myself, and others. We then opened it up for questions, and received a lot of participation. In addition, many people came up to us afterwards, commenting on our session. We were pleased to have so much interest!
On the evening of the first day of the symposium, there was an "IPM Awards" ceremony given by EPA. The IPM Institute took the "IPM Innovator" award, a result of cooperative IPM efforts among many individuals and school districts. The demonstration projects in Omaha and Lincoln Public Schools was recognized and included in this award!
On the second day in the morning, in a session about youth programming, Clyde gave a presentation about Pest Private Eye, and we brought several copies of the game that were eagerly snatched up :-) In the afternoon I was involved in a session about the use of social media and other technologies for teaching about IPM. I spoke about our use of dramatizations for PSEP and IPM video training, and about how we use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media (including this blog!) to keep subscribers up to date about current events, publications, and other related pesticide safety and IPM information.
The IPM Symposium was a great way to interact with colleagues from across the U.S. and the world who are also working in the IPM field...and getting a few more followers of this blog sure won't hurt, either!
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