[ Search PSU ]   

EPA Awards PA IPM Program - December 2004

December 10, 2004

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - Two education projects that are working to reduce the use of pesticides in schools and urban communities in Philadelphia were recently awarded grants from the EPA.

In an award ceremony December 14, 10:30 a.m. at the Shaw Middle School in West Philadelphia, the EPA presented the Pennsylvania IPM Program's Philadelphia School and Community IPM Partnership with a grant from their Urban Initiative Program. This investment by EPA will enhance the community IPM Partnership that was formed over a year ago to conduct an integrated pest management (IPM) education effort based on service learning. The core program is primarily funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Pennsylvania IPM program. IPM aims to manage pests -- such as insects, diseases, weeds and animals -- by combining physical, biological and chemical tactics that are safe, economical and environmentally compatible.

"The partnership aims to build the capacity of students at the Shaw Middle School in West Philadelphia to recognize, manage, and prevent pest and pesticide related health risks by using IPM," says Teresina Bailey, Community IPM Outreach Coordinator. The goal is to then transfer the IPM message from teachers and students to the community at large through community outreach and service learning. "The Shaw pilot program represents significant strides towards educating Philadelphia schools and communities how to use IPM to minimize health problems - such as asthma - which are closely associated with pests and pesticides," Bailey explains.

Bailey and Nicole Webster, assistant professor of agricultural extension and education at Penn State, are developing the service learning project. Service learning provides youth with skills to promote self-confidence, citizenship, and leadership to deal with these situations. With service learning, individuals find out the true needs of a community, ask questions, and interact with community members, helping to build skills, self-awareness, and common vision.

Teaching IPM through service learning provides students with opportunities to communicate with their own communities and take ownership of the education/outreach efforts. Pest problems can be sensitive subject matter for many people due to the false assumption that pest presence is solely related to hygiene. While important, this project stresses that pest problems are common to everyone and that there are many other factors encouraging pest presence in schools and homes. Most importantly, when the pest problems are identified and addressed by the students and community partners, these privacy issues are less of a roadblock and lend sustainability to pest management programs.

In addition, the Pennsylvania IPM Program (PA IPM) was recently awarded an EPA Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Regional Initiative Grant to fund an IPM demonstration house project in Philadelphia. The demonstration house project will be expanded to include a row house community in West Philadelphia.

According to Bailey, the goal of the project is to educate the community about how to deal with common household pests using IPM. "Many row house owners have health issues exacerbated by their pest problems," says Bailey. "Using IPM to manage pests can lessen the potential health side effects of using pesticides and can eliminate the sources of many indoor air pollutants such as pest and animal dander, cockroach allergens and rodent droppings. It is also important to address people's fear of pests which often leads to pesticide misuse."

Once the project is underway, the row house project will be opened to the community so they can see for themselves the results of best management practices. PA IPM will also hold a series of community IPM trainings and produce a video of the project to use as an educational tool.

For more information on PA IPM's Community IPM program, see Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/community.html.

The Pennsylvania IPM program is a collaboration between the Pennsylvania State University and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture aimed at promoting integrated pest management in both agricultural and nonagricultural situations. For more information, contact the program at (814) 865-2839, or Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu. To view our archived news releases, see Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/newsrelease.html.