Tag Archives: schools

EPA Webinar: Excluding Pests from Schools – September 22

We’re proud to pass along this announcement from the EPA regarding their upcoming webinar.

Excluding Pests from Schools

photo looking up towards the top of the side of a beige building composed of windows against a blue sky. Blinds are visiible in the window on the bottom right of the photo.

Wherever children go, pests follow – even back to school. Pests know where the goodies can be found and they strive to find a way into the building – under doors, through cracks in masonry, in gaps around pipes and wires – they find a way. Pest issues are universal – from rural to urban schools and all types of neighborhoods in-between. The best way to defeat them in their quest to inhabit your schools is to exclude them from entering the school buildings in the first place. NYSIPM’s Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann and Matt Frye will help you to identify the most likely places of entry in your buildings and the surest way to seal them out.

Attend this free webinar to learn where pests are entering schools and how to keep them out.

Sept. 22 | 2-3:30 p.m. EDT | Followed by a 30-minute Q&A

Register Now

Learning Objectives

  • Learn which pests are of concern in schools and how they are entering.
  • Learn how to exclude common ground-level pests, such as rodents and crawling arthropods, and effective integrated pest management strategies to reduce these pests.
  • Learn how to exclude common flying pests such as bats, flies and stinging insects, and the role of monitoring and trapping.

Presenters

NYS IPM Program’s own:

Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, Ph.D. Community IPM Coordinator

Matthew Frye, Ph.D. Community IPM Extension Area Educator

 

 

 

 

 

EPA’s Upcoming IPM 2022-2023 Webinar Series

New season, new topics. Review the types of IPM issues we will cover over the next year in our 2022-2023 webinar series. Mark your calendars now.

 

photo of a closeup of a green apple covered in water droplets with a portion of the stem showing

The NYS School Environmental Health Conference

“Unity is strength. . . when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” –Mattie Stepanek

What: The NYS School Environmental Health Conference is a free learning & networking opportunity for school personnel & related professionals interested in school environmental health

When: October 25, 2022, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Where: The Empire State Plaza Convention Center, 279 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY  12242

How: Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nys-school-environmental-health-conference-2022-tickets-338999204747

4 red and black insects on a brick wall

For some pests, your school is their winter getaway

smiling women dressed for autumn in front of a outdoor fall scene

Joellen Lampman, School & Turfgrass IPM Extension Support Specialist

I recently presented at the New York State School Facilities Association Conference & Expo and was asked multiple times, “What can I do about boxelder bugs?”. That provided the opportunity to talk about them and other fall invaders. The good news is that most fall invaders are just looking for a warm place to wait out the cold winter. The bad news is that usually we have had our first frost by now, and the lack of frost is  extending the period of time that intruders are attempting to break into our buildings. But there are still steps we can take to prevent more from coming in.

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The Cornell Turf Show: fastest 30 minutes in turf

Every other Friday, starting on March 12th and ending the second week in May, Cornell Turf Guru, Frank Rossi, will have a guest talking about sports field management. This week, former graduate student, Chris Sitko, will be on to discuss sports field safety and the high demand school districts will be placing on sports field early in the season. Topics and speakers will be updated on the Cornell Turf website, Twitter account, and Facebook page as they are scheduled.There will be a golf focused webinar every Thursday through this time and topics relevant to lawns will alternate with sports fields on Fridays. It’s a good idea to check on the topics for those not specific to sports fields, as there might be something of relevance to you. For example, the webinar series kicks off Thursday, March 11th, with Art Degaetano, Professor in the Cornell Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who will provide us with a winter weather review.

Can’t make a session live? Similar to last year, the webinars will be recording and posted to YouTube. (You can check out the 2020 webinars here.) We’ll also be posting the audio as podcasts for those who enjoy that medium.

All the webinar information can be found here on our website which will be updated periodically with guests and recordings: https://turf.cals.cornell.edu/news-2/webinars/

Ticks and Schoolyard Edges

The time of the falling leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept. – John Burroughs, The Falling Leaves

image of a man in long pants and sleeves, a baseball cap, and ear coverings using a leaf blower. In front of himn leaves are being blown towards the camera.

Leaf blowing leaves is a common practice, but does it cause a risk for more ticks?

A recent study, Artificial Accumulation of Leaf Litter in Forest Edges on Residential Properties via Leaf Blowing Is Associated with Increased Numbers of Host-Seeking Ixodes scapularis Nymphs published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, showed that areas where leaves were raked or blown into forest margins tripled the number of blacklegged tick nymphs compared to areas where leaves were not artificially accumulated. (There was no observed impact on lone star ticks.)

chart showing that 14 ticks were found within the woods, 51 along the wood edge, 12 3 meters into the field,1 found 6 m into the field, and 3 on the technician.

Most ticks were found along the woodland edge.

Combine this with the findings of a Cornell study, Active surveillance of pathogens from ticks collected in New York State suburban parks and schoolyards, and it is clear that woodland edges are the areas of highest risk for students to encounter ticks. Fortunately, most students don’t spend much time in these areas. Unfortunately, students will chase stray balls into these areas when ticks are furthest from their minds.

What can you do to protect students from these tick risky areas? Step one would be to monitor your school grounds for ticks. This low tech monitoring technique can easily be accomplished by a coach, playground monitor, or even students. Knowing that ticks are active can allow for some adjustment of play, like putting up cones to let students know areas are off limits.

Is there an area with consistently high tick activity? Installing fences or netting can prevent stray balls from entering wooded edges. Think of it as reverse exclusion – in this case, we’re keeping the students out of the pest areas.

Keep in mind that blacklegged ticks prefer high humidity, so look to reduce shady and damp areas where students spend time. We can modify parts of the school grounds to make them less hospitable to ticks by:

  • Removing leaf litter from wooded edges in high traffic areas
  • Removing trees shading play areas if monitoring shows those areas have tick activity
  • Replacing wood mulch, which can store moisture, if monitoring shows tick activity,  with a different, drier option
  • Widening trails to reduce the risk of students brushing against vegetation
  • Eradicating invasive plants, such as Japanese barberry, honeysuckle, and multiflora rose, that easily establish along wooded edges, and have been associated with higher concentrations of ticks carrying disease-causing pathogens

For more information on ticks and schools, check out our updated fact sheet Understanding and Managing Ticks – A Guide for Schools, Child Care and Camps. Additional information can be found on our website Don’t Get Ticked NY.