The University of Kentucky Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) develops educational materials for certification of Private Pesticide Applicators.  Private Pesticide Applicators are agricultural producers applying restricted and general use pesticide products to owned or leased land to produce an agriculture commodity.    Kentucky’s EPA approved certification program consists of a three-hour training covering core concepts or an in-depth examination covering the core concepts associated with the Private Applicator Program.    After assuming the new role of Agriculture Extension Associate Senior Specialist with the Entomology Department, the focus was to develop educational activity materials offering more hands-on approach to learning for producers taking part in the Private Applicator Certification.    In addition to the interactive educational materials, a focus structured approach to offering the certification was addressed.

With the addition of many new agriculture and horticulture agents in the past five years, providing structural templates to certification programs to help agents provide the needed information addressing core concepts was a priority.  Adding interactive educational activities as part of the delivery per request of agents would increase learning by participants.   Multiple educational activities relating to core competencies, such as, label and labelling usage, personal protective equipment recognition, chemical compatibility, pest recognition and biology, and recordkeeping are now part of the educational tool box for agents’ local certification programs.   These added components to the teaching structure will allow participants to engage in the learning process.  Increasing engagement to learning will help allow participants to better understand core concepts as it relates to pesticide safety.