Optional Activities
Monday, February 28
Come early and participate in one of the optional field trips where Integrated Pest Management practices-and their associated challenges-will be showcased. Space is limited. Sign up available during registration.
If you go on any of the trips, we encourage you to take pictures and poster them on social media. Tag our Facebook or Twitter pages (@IPMSymposium), and use the hashtag #IPMSymp2022.
Field Trip A: Butterfly Pavilion Tour | 1:00-4:00 PM
Cost: $35 per person
Capacity: 25
Visit Colorado’s premier invertebrate zoo! An experienced guide will take you through the exhibits and behind-the-scenes areas, giving your group the ‘ins and outs,’ animal knowledge, and personal attention that they may not experience on their own. See a honeybee hive, touch sea stars and horseshoe crabs, and hold our Chilean rose-hair tarantula, Rosie! Walk amongst the butterflies in our fully immersive rainforest exhibit, and see our behind-the-scenes areas where animal care staff work on invertebrate research and conservation.
Tour leaves the Sheraton Hotel by bus at 1:00 PM with an expected return of 4:00 PM.
Field Trip B: Botanic Gardens Tour | 1:00-4:00 PM
Cost: $35 per person
Capacity: 25
Discover an urban oasis throughout the seasons! Denver Botanic Gardens contains nearly 50 artistically designed gardens and more than 15,000 unique types of plants. Within its 24 acres, you can admire a wide range of specimens, from native beauties to exotic tropical plants. During your tour, experienced Gardens docents and staff will share their knowledge of and passion for plants, horticulture and art. These informative conversations will give you the opportunity to ask questions, share your thoughts, experience perennial favorites and uncover lesser-known spaces.
Tour leaves the Sheraton Hotel by bus at 1:00 PM with an expected return of 4:00 PM.
Field Trip C: Novel Strand Brewery Tour | 2:30-4:30 PM
Cost: $35 per person
Capacity: 25
Check out this unique, female- and minority-owned brewery. Back in 2012 Ayana Coker, Chantel Columna, and Tamir Danon would sit over a few pints of beer in a small town in upstate New York and joke about starting up a brewery of their own one day. Life continued along its course, and in 2015 Chantel and Tamir decided to move (almost) across the country to the mile high city to pursue the dream they joked about years before.
Novel Strand Brewing Company was officially formed in July of 2016 with one intention: "Brew the best beer we can. No gimmicks, no trends, no tricks, no shortcuts, no fads. Just beer. Changes in DNA are not inherently good or bad... just different."
Tour leaves the Sheraton Hotel by bus at 2:30 PM with an expected return of 4:30 PM. Includes (2) 10 oz. sample brews for those 21 and older.
Field Trip D: Museum of Nature & Science Tour | 1:00-4:00 PM
Cost: $35 per person
Capacity 20
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science envisions an empowered community that loves, understands, and protects our natural world. Join us for an exciting behind the scenes tour of this 716,000-square-foot building that houses more than one million objects in its collections. The exhibitions, IMAX films, lectures, classes, and programs pertain to one or more of the following core competencies: anthropology, geology, health science, paleontology, space science, and zoology.
Tour leaves the Sheraton Hotel by bus at 1:00 PM with an expected return of 4:00 PM.
Tuesday, March 1
Mentorship Meetup | 4:40-5:40 PM
Open to all Symposium attendees. No registration required.
Share your story, lessons learned, or pose unfathomable problems. Come meet fellow IPM enthusiasts with greater, less, or different experience. This is an informal meeting where you are encouraged to ask candid questions about IPM, careers, or anything in between. Mentors and mentees will bring unique experiences to the meetup and our goal is to promote positive discussions across a variety of topics.
Journal of Integrated Pest Management Social Hour | 5:00-6:00 PM
Open to all Symposium attendees. No registration required.
Enjoy complimentary snacks and beverages with the Journal of Integrated Pest Management editors. Discussion topics will include an introduction to the journal, tips for publishing with the journal, notable recent papers, and more. Ample time will be left for discussion and interaction.
Thursday, March 3
Professional Development Workshop: "Understanding spatial data collection and use" | 1:30-5:00 PM
Workshop Leaders: Charles T. Bargeron, Joe LaForest, and Rebekah Wallace
Cost: $45 per person
Capacity: 25
There are many tools for collecting, managing, and visualizing spatial data. While we all benefit from these tools, many biologists don’t understand how they work behind the scenes, how they are maintained, or how seemingly simple changes may have unforeseen consequences. This gap can make adopting these tools feel like a barrier to entry when planning for new projects, choosing between existing tools, and sharing data between programs.
This workshop invites participants to be more conversant in the basic terminology used in the design and operation of these systems to foster mindful collaboration.
Specifically, in this workshop, participants will gain an understanding of:
- Basic concepts of data, databases, websites, and apps
- Spatial data basics
- How to talk to programmers and other nerds
- Data collection tools and collection strategies
- Setup for success - Metadata and thinking through data collection
- Citizen science vs expert
- Local level vs landscape scale
- Data privacy & ownership
- Basic visualization tools
- Analysis and advanced visualization tools
At the end of this workshop, the participants will be conversant in the basic terminology used in the design and operation of these systems, though they will not be proficient in all tools mentioned or used in this workshop.
About the Leaders:
Charles T. Bargeron is the Director of the Center for Invasive Species & Ecosystem Health and has a Public Service Faculty appointment in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. A native of Tifton, GA, Chuck graduated from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 1997 with an Associate Degree in Computer Science and received a B.S in Computer Science in 1999, from Georgia Southern University. In 2004, he received an M.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Southwestern State University. He has been with the University of Georgia for 23 years where he has developed web applications, smartphone applications, interactive CD-ROMs, databases and outreach publications. Websites that Chuck has designed for the University of Georgia have been featured twice in Science Magazine, received regional awards for content and design, and have received over 2 billion hits in the last 20 years.
Joe LaForest is Associate Director for the University of Georgia's Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health (Bugwood) and leads the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Forest Health programs. He joined University of Georgia in 2006 and has focused on developing resources for educating all audiences on IPM and plant biosecurity as well as using technology to enable more effective use and distribute information. He leads system development for various databases and interfaces used by the center for organization and delivery of images, video, presentations, occurrence data, maps, and other user created content. He also serves as Co-Director for the Southern IPM Center and coordinates the Facilitation of Innovation Through Technology (FITT) initiative to encourage communication between systems focused on IPM and Plant Biosecurity while also leveraging the capabilities of each system to maximize the benefit to all stakeholders. In concert with the extension and leveraging of digital resources, he has begun work to improve impact evaluation of digital resources as well as structural analysis of content delivery and exchange networks.
Rebekah Wallace joined the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health at the University of Georgia as the EDDMapS Data Coordinator in 2011 and is now the EDDMapS Coordinator and BugwoodImages Coordinator. She graduated from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 2005 with an A.S. in Agriculture, the University of Georgia in 2007 with a B.S. in Agriscience and Environmental Systems and in 2009 with a M.S. in Crop and Soil Sciences with an emphasis in Weed Science. In 2010, Wallace worked at Henderson Beach State Park in Destin, Florida as an AmeriCorps Member where she scouted and identified native and invasive plant species, presented interpretive programs, and developed invasive plant identification and reporting material. She works to integrate bulk uploads of invasive, pest, and biocontrol data into EDDMapS and AgPest Monitor, train reporters and verifiers on data input and validation, instruct people on contributing and requesting images from the Image Database, and more. She has a particular interest in data sharing and preservation and works to ensure that data is accurate and broadly available.
If you have already registered for the symposium and wish to add a field trip or the post-symposium workshop, please log back into your registration record to do so, or email Leah McSherry.