Tick Project News
The Appalachian Ohio Tick Project held a workshop for teachers involved in this year's project at the Ohio University's Zanesville Campus. Participants practiced tick population sampling methods, DNA extraction, PCR amplification, and gel electrophoresis analysis that they and their students will use during the 2024-2025 school year to study Lyme Disease risk across the Appalachian region of Ohio. The project is funded by a grant from the OEPA's Ohio Environmental Education Fund and spearheaded by the New Philadelphia City Schools.
Two New Philadelphia City Schools Environmental Education Projects Win Ohio EPA Awards!
The NPCS Tick Project and an earlier OEPA funded project, called the LIFE Project, were recently awarded the OEPA's Outstanding Environmental Education Projects designation. The above video includes an interview with teacher Kip Brady and student Vincent Henning about the Ohio Environmental Education Fund and how these funds have been important to facilitating projects that create deep levels of engagement between people and their environment. You can read more about the these awards here.
Ohio Environmental Education Fund Grant Award!!
The Appalachian Ohio Tick Project has been awarded a $50,000.00 grant from the OEEF for the 2024-2025 school year! These funds will allow us to expand the project we've developed at the New Philadelphia City Schools to other high schools in southeastern Ohio. Partner schools from southeastern Ohio counties will measure Blacklegged Tick population densities, use pcr and gel electrophoresis to evaluate Borrelia burgdorferi prevalence within these populations, and share data to examine trends in these variables and Lyme Disease case rates across the Appalachian region of Ohio.
New Philadelphia High School Students Present Tick Research at the Student Wildlife Research Symposium
Students from Mrs. Brady's AP Biology class worked on a project over the winter to examine how Blacklegged Tick population density and Borrelia burgdorferi prevalence change between Tuscarawas County (a high incidence Lyme Disease area), and Stark and Summit Counties (lower incidence of Lyme Disease). They presented a poster of their results at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Student Wildlife Research Symposium at Salt Fort State Park on April 11th. In short, they found that neither tick densities nor pathogen prevalence were significantly different by county, and some of the sites with the highest tick densities and highest pathogen prevalence were located in these "low Lyme Disease incidence" counties. One hypothesis is that the percentage of forest cover is much higher (53%) in Tuscarawas County than in Stark (22%) or Summit Counties (28%), so perhaps the greater proportion of forest cover results in more exposure of people to habitats where Lyme Disease risk is higher. Future research efforts, like our 2024-2025 Appalachian Ohio Tick Project will explore this question more directly.
Teacher Workshop!!
Exploring the Ecology of Lyme Disease
June 14-15, 2023
We will host a free workshop for teachers that will engage them in collecting and testing ticks for B. burgdorferi with a focus on how the project can be implemented in their classrooms. The workshop will be held at The Wilderness Center.
The Tick Project was recently featured in this article by OSU's Infectious Diseases Institute. Dr. Pesapane has been instrumental in helping us develop the ability to test ticks for pathogens within the classroom environment, and her lab is used to verify that our methods are accurately detecting pathogen prevalence.
This article featured our project in a number of newspapers in Ohio.