Welcome to Training Module Mania!, a monthly supplement from the PSEP Office that will explore each training topic (‘module’) of private applicator training and the resources available to Educators for delivering that topic. Our goal with this series of articles is to help you find the training materials you need and examine how best to use them. This month, we will focus on the “Pesticide Safety” module.
Human exposure to pesticides is one of the primary concerns of pesticide safety educators. Pesticide applicators can experience exposure in any number of ways. In the Pesticide Safety module, applicators learn how to mitigate the risk of personal exposure by using the risk equation, selecting/using appropriate PPE for an application, recognizing the symptoms of acute pesticide exposure, preparing for emergencies, and safely disposing of rinsates and containers. Additionally, the module covers the routes of pesticide exposure, the difference between acute and chronic toxicity, examples of products with high health risks, and more.
Materials available for teaching the Pesticide Safety module are:
• Enhanced PowerPoint presentation with discussion questions (available soon on OneDrive/SharePoint, formerly Box)
• Standard PowerPoint presentation with more basic formatting (available on OneDrive/SharePoint)
• Video versions of the standard PowerPoint module (available on OneDrive/SharePoint)
• Activity – Know the Risk Equation (In-Service Manual, page 64 )
• Activity – Dermal Exposure Chart (In-Service Manual, page 66-67)
• Activity – Glove Exercise (In-Service Manual, page 68-69)
• Activity – Glove Permeability (available on OneDrive/SharePoint)
• Demonstration – PPE Display and Demonstration (In-Service Manual, page 69)
• Demonstration – Proper Personal Hygiene with GlowBar/Glitterbug Potion (In-Service Manual, page 69)
• Demonstration – Liquid Pesticide Containers, Rinse Three Times (In-Service Manual, page 69-70)
• Video segments, including 10 Tips for Safe Pesticide Storage, Control Contain, and Clean Up, Gloves for Pesticide Application, How to Handle Chemical Resistant Gloves, Personal Protective Equipment for Applicators, Pesticide Disposal, Respirators, Pesticide Spill Management, Private Greenhouse Safety, Spill Survivor (four parts), What to Wear, How to Rinse Caged Tanks for Recycling, and Spill Kit Additions. (available on OneDrive/SharePoint; see pages 52-56 in the In-Service Manual for a complete list of supplementary video segments with descriptions, sorted by training module.)
• NebGuides and Extension Circulars, including Safe Transport, Storage, and Disposal of Pesticides, Managing Pesticide Spills, Managing the Risk of Pesticide Poisoning and Understanding the Signs and Symptoms, Protective Clothing and Equipment for Pesticide Applicators, Gloves for Handling Pesticides, Respirators for Handling Pesticides, and Fit Testing a Respirator for Pesticide Applications. (located in the Private Applicator Reference Guide, which all trainees receive)
• Others?
The In-Service Manual provides a comprehensive checklist of topics that, by law, must be covered in private applicator training. This checklist is found in Appendix A, pages 47-48. Immediately after this checklist, on pages 49-50, is a Curriculum Table of available training materials, sorted by module. Use the requirements checklist and Curriculum Table to plan your training sessions.
The PowerPoint presentation for the Pesticide Safety module is one in a set of nine that cover everything required for private applicator training. Thus, if you so desired, you could simply present these nine slide decks and fulfill the requirements for training private applicators. However, you may find that replacing some PowerPoints with activities, videos, and discussions increases the impact and engagement of your training sessions.
Another important note on the presentations: you can often find presenter notes below the slides that explain the slide creator’s intent behind including certain things and how to discuss them. These notes can be extremely helpful to the presenter. The notes may include exact wording that can be used for a given slide, however, it is typically best to speak in an unscripted, informal way.
During the second half of 2020, Educators and the PSEP Office developed a set of videos covering each of the nine module PowerPoint presentations discussed above. If you feel uncomfortable lecturing on a certain module, you can choose to play that module’s video instead. Some modules even have multiple versions presented by different Educators, allowing additional flexibility. Three videos for the Pesticide Safety module were completed, featuring Sarah Browning, Gary Lesoing, and Sarah Sivits as presenters. These videos are based on the original, un-“enhanced” PowerPoints, which will still be available if you are not comfortable with the new discussion-oriented PowerPoints. Additionally, you can mix and match the traditional PowerPoints with the discussion-oriented PowerPoints.
A number of activities are available for you to use while teaching the Pesticide Safety module. Know the Risk Equation is an opportunity to discuss the relationship between pesticide toxicity, exposure, and overall risk. Applicators who understand this concept are equipped to reduce the risks posed to their health by pesticides by selecting low-toxicity products and minimizing exposure with PPE and safe application practices.
The skin is the most common route of pesticide exposure. The Dermal Exposure Chart activity asks participants to guess which areas of the body are most prone to absorbing pesticides and consider the implications of this. For example, the groin area absorbs about 11.8 times as much parathion as the forearms, which indicates the importance of wearing a chemical-resistant apron when mixing and loading pesticides.
The Glove Exercise spotlights the importance of chemical-resistant gloves for pesticide applicators. The In-Service Manual describes several different ways to incorporate this exercise into your training. You can also combine this exercise with the PPE Display and Demonstration.
The Proper Personal Hygiene demonstration utilizes fluorescent tracer material to show participants just how easy it is to spread contamination from themselves to people and objects they interact with. This highlights the value of good hygiene such as hand-washing. There is an entire manual (available on OneDrive) devoted to using this teaching tool in pesticide safety education. This manual has a number of good demo options to consider.
The Glove Permeability activity demonstrates how the material and thickness of the glove can impact pesticide permeation or leaching posing risk of contact with the skin.
Risk isn’t limited to mixing, loading, or applying pesticides. Pesticide containers must be disposed of properly, the first step of which is thorough rinsing. The Liquid Pesticide Containers, Rinse Three Times demonstration is a perfect way to emphasize this important process.
In addition to activities and demonstrations, a host of supplementary videos are at your disposal for this module. See above, or the In-Service Manual, for a list.
Finally, if you do not have time to cover a required topic in the Pesticide Safety module (or any other module), you can refer participants to one of the Extension publications in their Private Applicator Reference Guide that covers that topic.
During training, we recommend that you spend about 15-20 minutes teaching the Pesticide Safety module.