The Kansas State University Integrated Pest Management team is dealing IPM education one playing card at a time by developing a unique tool to teach about integrated pest management control strategies. The purpose is to increase the user’s knowledge of where and how integrated pest management is used. This was accomplished by developing a traditional 52 card playing deck. These cards featured images of pest control measures representing the four control options for the “suites” (cultural control, biological control, physical/mechanical control, and chemical control).  This innovative resource allows participants to achieve specific learning outcomes by playing traditional card games. The learners are exposed to the information on the cards or can be used in combination with dice featuring pests to help develop a better understanding on pest management strategies.    

The development of this card deck required new ways of thinking about educational content creation and design as nothing like this had been done within our K-State Research and Extension system (KSRE). To prepare the playing cards, team members developed the content by writing the text (45 words/285 characters), and they obtained the required images to complement each subject. Following this, the K-State Communications Department created a template with appropriate size and graphic guidelines for the playing cards. Once edited and formatted, the cards were professionally printed by a company specialized in printing plastic coated playing cards. The whole process took about 11 months to complete. A total of 600 decks of cards were purchased and distributed. The team encountered various challenges while navigating through the development of this educational tool.

A link to an evaluation survey was printed on the back of the instruction booklet, but we did not gain much feedback, so a revised survey was sent to everyone who purchased a deck of cards.  Articles promoting the cards were featured in Pest Management Professionals blog and magazine, the McPherson Sentinel, the Kansas Better Blog and the Kansas State Turfgrass Blog. Cards were distributed to County Extension professionals, pesticide safety educators, teachers, and pest management professionals all over the United States and even in Canada.