Description
Bringing Permaculture to Our Communities: A workshop for mentors, educators, and facilitators
What can we do during this transformative year of 2020 on our beautiful planet? We know the need for justice, regeneration and care for our children, youth, and communities in an ever-changing world which is so very different than the world of our own childhoods? How do we take responsibility intelligently? How do we immediately model how to address climate change in our home-places and deepen our relationship to the Earth and each other as caretakers in community?
We know the moment is now. Everything we do to support the Earth and the youth of today supports the Earth and elders of tomorrow. Will we begin to learn to become the caretakers and the elders they need us to be?
Have you begun that journey and long for the next step?
Join us this summer, July 29-31st, 2020
Bringing Permaculture to Our Community: A Workshop for mentors, educators, and facilitators is presented by Northern Michigan Permaculture and hosted by Commonplace, a community innovation hub and co-working space in Traverse City, which is just a very, few blocks away from Grand Traverse Bay in the unceded Anishinaabe territory of Northwest Michigan’s lower peninsula.
Engage in a nature-based approach to teaching, mentoring and anti-oppression work
Consider how children are transformative change agents in our culture and society by examining both your generational experience and youth relationships with nature and permaculture design.
Learn the basics of designing children and youth permaculture activities, through Practice, Design, and Information share.
Meet other people who are interested in permaculture design, mentoring, education, and engaging children in permaculture
Ongoing support through use of in-person and/or an online networking group and exploring ways to instigate a permaculture learning network in your region.
Bringing Permaculture to our Community is for anyone interested in learning about permaculture design and ways in which to share/teach it, including:
- Primary, nursery and elementary educators
- Home-school parents
- Mentors of pre-school, K-8th grade children and youth
- Policy makers
- Permaculture designers
- Forest School leaders
- Scout leaders
- Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and
- Anyone interested in Earth Care, People Care and Fair share in education!
This training will include some preparatory reading beforehand and support/on-going discussion group afterwards.
If you haven’t taken a permaculture course, no problem–this will be an excellent introduction. AND, we encourage you to explore information on taking a full, permaculture design course in Michigan and/or on-line opportunities under Events and PDC 2020 tabs, on our website Northern Michigan Permaculture
Each day, July 29-31st, will begin at Commonplace at 9:00 am until 5:00 pm, with garden-farm tours beginning @ 6:30 pm, and a family and friends evening potluck on the last day.
This Three-Day training is based on several excellent published resources, along with a teaching team that has 20+ years of hands-on teaching experiences. We are pleased to bring longtime permaculture designers/mentors/educators to hear your stories; support your teaching and mentoring and to share their experiences: Rhonda Baird and Penny Krebiehl are joined by Kate Heiber-Cobb. All three women on this facilitation team have lived, worked and devoted themselves to learning and sharing through art, environmental education and social justice–including permaculture design–the midwest their entire lives.
Registration begins on March 15th, 2020. We are offering this training to a maximum of 20 people, 18 years and older. Registration fees and dates to meet sliding scale options are as follow:
- Until May 14th: $200.00-$250.00
- May 15th-June 15th: $300.00-$350.00
- July 16th: $400.00
The sliding scale fee does not cover overnight accommodations or meals. However, if you are traveling to TC from a distance, we will provide information to help you find a friendly, local permaculture host or AirBnb.
Participants are invited to bring a sack lunch, water bottle and healthy snacks. Water, tea, coffee and light snacks will be provided by our host. Expect FULL days and plan to arrive on time and dig deep!
This course will take place at the Commonplace, Traverse City, which is handicapped accessible. We will be driving out of town and touring three garden-farm and permaculture sites in the NW Michigan region at the close of each day.
Permaculture Educator and Mentoring Team:
- Rhonda Baird grew up gardening and foraging in Indiana. She is passionate about redirecting efforts from extractive practices toward skills that foster resilience and nurture life. To that end, she engaged in community organizing and non-profit work for 25 years, and came to teaching permaculture design in 2005. She co-originated the Bloomington Permaculture Guild, the Great Rivers & Lakes Permaculture Institute, and supports groups doing the good work in the Bloomington, Indiana region and beyond. She is a Field Advisor for PINA, leader of the permaculture circle in Sociocracy for All, and is the senior editor of Permaculture Design magazine (formerly Permaculture Activist). She maintains a design practice through Sheltering Hills Design.
Penny Krebiehl has been sharing/educating through permaculture design since 2005, and is a graphic-recorder for courses and presentations, through the Mid-west & USA. Penny is a life-long Michigan garden-farmer, woods-wanderer, and arts educator. She is the founder of Northern Michigan Permaculture, a Co-Originator of Great Rivers and Lakes Permaculture Institute, a Certified Permaculture Designer and Instructor. As the originator of O’k CSA Cooperative, building a neighborhood, community gardening system in Traverse City, since 2004, she continues to serve the community and region. Penny’s work is focused through Northern Michigan Permaculture, O’k Art & Design and the educational non-profit, Little Artshram.
Kate Heiber-Cobb founded the Madison Area Permaculture Guild in the Spring of 2008 and continues to coordinate the grassroots organization. Through her business, Sustainability on Stilts, LLC, she designs, educates and consults on Permaculture. Kate taught at the Continuing Education Department of Madison College, Olbrich Gardens, and other venues around the state of Wisconsin. She was honored as a Badger Bioneer in 2010 and received recognition from Oxfam as a Woman Leader in her community in 2011. She served as a Wisconsin Representative to the Great Lakes Permaculture Institute which is a regional hub of the Permaculture Institute of North America and served on the Board of Community Groundworks at Troy Gardens on the north side of Madison. She previously served on the Advisory Board of the Edgewood College Sustainability Leadership Graduate Program, and on the Vision Team of Town & Country RC&D. Kate received her PDC in 2007 and Advanced PDC through Midwest Permaculture in 2008. She received her Permaculture Teaching Certificate through Peter Bane and Sandy Cruz in 2014.
Below is the 3-Day Training Overview, which is subject to be rearranged, altered and tweaked.
Day 1, meeting our community, interacting with information:
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1. Introduction to Permaculture; Ethics, Principles, Patterns & abundance;
2. The BIG Wide Wonderful World; Air, Water, soil, plants & trees, Animals, fungus;
3. Inclusive Teaching/Mentoring + Anti-Oppression Methods
Day 2, Designing lessons with participants and facilitators:
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4. Eco-Artists & Designers; mimicking nature and the way things work
5. Garden-Farming; Tame & Wild gardens, growing, preparing, saving seeds, preserving food;
6. Inclusive Teaching/Mentoring + Anti-Oppression Methods
Day 3, Practicing lessons in small teams and micro-learning:
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7. Houses, Shelter, & Living wisely; Building, resource use;
8. Inclusive Teaching/Mentoring + Anti-Oppression Methods
9. Get Together; You, Me and Us, Dynamic Ways of being