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IPM Part of New Academic Standards - November 2001
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - The Pennsylvania State Board of Education and the Regulatory Review Commission unanimously adopted proposed academic standards in three subject areas (Science, Technology and Environment and Ecology) recently, including Integrated Pest Management, or IPM.
IPM aims to manage pests -- such as insects, diseases, weeds and animals -- by combining physical, biological and chemical tactics that are safe and environmentally compatible.
The standards establish expectations for what students should know in the content areas of science and technology and environment and ecology. Other standard areas have been moved by the Board for consideration. These areas include civics and government, economics, and geography. IPM is one of nine components of the newly adopted standards covering ecology and the environment.
Like earlier standards for math, reading, writing and science, student's progress for the new standards in science and technology and environment and ecology will be tracked as part of the state's standardized testing program. The new science assessment will be for grades 4, 7 and 12. Field-testing was done in the spring of 2001 and will be done again in the spring of 2002. The Pennsylvania's Department of Education's Office of Environment and Ecology has developed an assessment project that will measure the success found in classrooms, says Patricia Vathis, Director of the Office of Environment and Ecology. "The standards had to be developed from scratch since no national standards have surfaced for environment and ecology. The new standards will establish environment and ecology as a mandated part of the curriculum in all public and charter schools of the Commonwealth."
The proposed standards were reviewed by the state House and Senate education committees, as well as by an independent regulatory board and approved, respectively. The standards are now with the Attorney General's Office for signature and will then be published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, at which time they will be law.
For more information on the standards for environment and ecology contact Vathis at (717) 783-6994. The Environment and Ecology Standards may be viewed at http://www.pde.psu.edu/standard/ecology.pdf
In support of the new IPM academic standard, the Pennsylvania IPM program offers educational resources for teachers. The PAIPM web site contains an interactive database of IPM educational materials. In addition, a full K-4 IPM curriculum developed for the State College School District is available for download. For the past three years the course, 'IPM for Teachers: Meeting the New Academic Standards' has been offered for graduate credit.