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US EPA has launched a Bed Bug Information Clearinghouse. It contains peer-reviewed bed bug outreach materials from sources like governments, universities and extension services.  

Green Ribbon Schools Recognized for Creating Healthy Learning Environments    

The US Department of Education (ED), US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) announced 78 honorees of the 2012 Green Ribbon Schools award in April. The selected schools come from 29 states and D.C. and include 66 public schools, including eight charters, and 12 private schools.

According to Nancy Sutley, chair of CEQ, "These Green Ribbon School award winners are taking outstanding steps to educate tomorrow's environmental leaders, and demonstrating how sustainability and environmental awareness make sense for the health of our students and our country."

Green Ribbon Schools are evaluated based on three pillars: reducing environmental impact; promoting healthy school environments; and ensuring a high-quality environmental and outdoor education to prepare students with 21st century skills and sustainability concepts. Full criteria include nine underlying elements including reducing greenhouse gas emissions; establishing high standards of nutrition, fitness and quantity of outdoor time; and interdisciplinary learning about relationships between environmental, energy and human systems.

Four IPM criteria were included in the application:

• The school has an IPM plan in place to reduce and/or eliminate pesticides.
• The school provides notification of pest control policies, methods of application and requirements for posting and pre-notification to parents and school employees.
• The school maintains annual summaries of pesticide applications and copies of pesticide labels and MSDS.
• The school prohibits children from entering a treated area for at least eight hours after the treatment or longer if required by the pesticide label.

Approximately 80% of awarded schools reported that they had an IPM plan and 88% prohibited children from entering a treated area for eight or more hours.

Several schools reported taking additional steps beyond those listed in the application. Lucy School in Middletown, Maryland, wrote, "Chemical fertilizers and herbicides (as well as smoking and idling vehicles) are banned from the school property." Similarly, Bernard High School in Bernardsville, New Jersey, also reported prohibiting chemicals for pest management.

Students from Bethlehem Central School District, located in Delmar, New York, give tours of their organic school garden. According to their application, "They use large colorful display boards to highlight the four obstacles to growing food (soil nutrition, garden pests, weed control and water management) and show how they overcome each obstacle using organic growing methods."

According to Andrea Falken, director of the Green Ribbon Schools Program, the idea for this award came from a letter signed by 80 organizations requesting an initiative regarding the intersection of environmental literacy and environmental health. "The EPA administrator and CEQ chair have stood by us throughout this process," says Falken, "but this is really ED's award. It was our first big move in the direction of environmental health."

Many schools are making efforts to become greener. "Different schools were calling themselves 'green' but they all had different criteria," says Falken. "We wanted to create an all-encompassing definition for 'green,' including elements of environmental impact and literacy." Besides the pillars and underlying elements listed in the application, ED was mostly nonspecific about what they were looking for this year. "We just asked for the schools to give us their best. We wanted them to show they were making progress and were high-performing in all these areas," comments Falken.

The announcement of the honorees was made at Stoddert Elementary School, one of the selected schools in D.C. Representatives from the honored schools will attend a conference and awards ceremony in early June.

ED published a list of recommended resources that many recipients used to help meet award criteria. Falken says ED plans to revise and improve the nomination structure for the award's second year, including the criteria, resource list and framework for nominating agencies.

US EPA Webinar on IPM in Child Care Centers Draws a Crowd    

More than 600 people, including child care center directors and staff, child care health consultants and state licensing staff, attended a webinar hosted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entitled "Integrated Pest Management in Child Care Centers: Protecting our Children from Pests and Pesticides." The presentation covered a range of IPM topics, including its importance in child care centers, a definition and description of IPM steps, health and economic benefits, and specific tips for implementing IPM in a facility.

As one example of the importance of IPM, presenter Marcia Anderson, environmental education program specialist for EPA Region 2 said, "Spraying pesticides is not very effective against ants, and more importantly, pesticide residues can build up in the dust on floors, where children may breathe or swallow these residues. Ant control should focus on good sanitation and building maintenance rather than routine sprays."

EPA's next webinar, "Bed Bugs go to School," is scheduled for June 18 at 1:00 p.m. EDT. According to Kathy Seikel, senior policy analyst with EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection, "We hope to deliver additional webinars on children's health in child care settings in the future."

In conjunction with the webinar, EPA posted training modules to a child care resources page. The training, developed by Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, community IPM extension area educator/urban entomologist for Cornell University, is a series of downloadable PDFs aimed at child care directors, maintenance staff and others covering IPM strategies for several common pests.