UConn Extension brings awareness to pesticide restrictions on school grounds

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut Exten­sion recent­ly cre­at­ed a series made to bring aware­ness to pes­ti­cide restric­tions on school grounds in Connecticut. 

UConn Exten­sion edu­ca­tor Vic­to­ria Wal­lace said that the series was start­ed fol­low­ing a major ban on pes­ti­cides in the state of Connecticut. 

“In 2010, Con­necti­cut state leg­is­la­tion banned the appli­ca­tion of all Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA)-registered land­scape and lawn care pes­ti­cides on the grounds of pub­lic and pri­vate pre‑K and K‑8 schools,” Vic­to­ria Wal­lace said. 

 UConn Extension’s aim with this series is to clar­i­fy the ban for grounds man­agers, admin­is­tra­tors, par­ents, guardians and teach­ers, as well as oth­er mem­bers of the school fac­ul­ty, Vic­to­ria Wal­lace said. 

The series is the result of a part­ner­ship between UConn Exten­sion, the Con­necti­cut Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion (CT Deep) and mem­bers of sev­er­al munic­i­pal asso­ci­a­tions that came togeth­er to form the Con­necti­cut School Inte­grat­ed Pest Man­age­ment (IPM) Coali­tion in 2010. 

UConn envi­ron­men­tal jour­nal­ism pro­fes­sor Scott Wal­lace said pes­ti­cides should always be banned on school grounds. 

“I think it’s a good idea to restrict the use of pes­ti­cides on school grounds,” Scott Wal­lace said. “Pes­ti­cides kill insects as well as oth­er organ­isms in the environment.” 

Scott Wal­lace also said that use of these chem­i­cals should be kept at a minimum. 

“These pes­ti­cides should be kept at low lev­els so that they don’t affect birds,” he said. “As an envi­ron­men­tal writer, I’ve become more aware of these issues and feel pas­sion­ate about them.” 

Scott Wal­lace, who recent­ly did a sto­ry for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic on ille­gal Ama­zon log­ging, said that these chem­i­cals have a bad effect on the envi­ron­ment worldwide. 

“The use of pes­ti­cides as well as oth­er fer­til­iz­ers are hav­ing a neg­a­tive effect on rivers like the Ama­zon,” Wal­lace said. 

For more infor­ma­tion, stu­dents can read a brochure, a primer for school admin­is­tra­tors and a longer primer that includes man­age­ment infor­ma­tion for school grounds man­agers. These can be found on UConn’s Pest Man­age­ment web­site.