Lessons Learned Implementing an Educational System in Second Life

Second Life is an online 3D virtual environment that offers interesting potential for use in education due to its widespread availability, flexibility, and its use of standard platforms and input devices. Given a broad design brief for a nine-week masters student project of using Second Life for education, we explored a range of potential ways of using the environment, and designed and implemented a 3D turtle-graphics system. In this paper we present our findings together with a reflection on both the constraints that Second Life places on the range of educational uses worth pursuing, and the specific issues likely to be faced by researchers creating other such systems

Six Years of Successful Management of Whitefly Resistance in Arizona Cotton

Arizona cotton experienced a severe crisis in 1995 stemming from resistance of whiteflies to synergized pyrethroid insecticides. The insect growth regulators (IGRs) Knack® (pyriproxyfen) and Applaud® (buprofezin) served a pivotal role in resolving this problem. Statewide monitoring of whitefly resistance is conducted annually in Arizona to assess the status of resistance in this important pest. In this paper we provide an update on results from whitefly collections made from 19 cotton fields located throughout Arizona. Overall, whitefly control in Arizona cotton remained excellent in the 2001 season and there were no reported field failures. However, we detected major decreases in susceptibility to Knack of whiteflies collected from cotton. Whereas it was extremely rare to have any whiteflies surviving bioassays of 0.1 μg/ml from 1996 to 1998, this changed in 1999, and by the 2001 season over 60% of Arizona sites evaluated had •2% pyriproxyfen-resistant whiteflies. One collection from Eloy, Arizona, in 2000 had >50% of whiteflies surviving Knack bioassays of 0.1 μg/ml. Whiteflies throughout Arizona continued to be moderately less susceptible to Applaud, relative to susceptibility levels in 1996, when the IGRs were first introduced. In contrast to our findings with Knack, changes in susceptibility to Applaud have been only moderate and quantitative. Arizona whiteflies continued a six year trend of reduced resistance to synergized pyrethroid insecticides, as indicated by bioassays with mixtures of Danitol and Orthene. Problematic frequencies of whiteflies resistance to synergized pyrethroids were found at only two of 19 locations sampled. Steps should be taken now to prepare for the onset of more severe resistance to IGRs in Arizona cotton. Factors that could undermine the current success of whitefly resistance management in Arizona are discussed. Education efforts should reinforce the importance of limiting IGR use in cotton to a maximum of one treatment each per season and rotating conventional insecticides as recommended in the three-stage resistance management strategy implemented in 1996. Because Knack and Applaud have received registrations for use in Arizona vegetable and melon crops grown in proximity to cotton, it is now especially critical that Extension education efforts focus on cross-commodity coordination of IGR use recommendations to preserve the activity of these important insecticides