permaculture teaching

Permaculture Teaching Design

•Teaching Experience

•Course Structure Options

• Other thoughts

•Our PDCs

•An Introductory Course Co-Created by Josh Gomez & Rosie Stonehill

Teaching experience Co-teaching with Lesley

It was really good to sit through all the PDC lessons again and to see Lesley's enthusiastic and inspiring approach to teaching and to look at the whole thing again from a perspective of learning to teach the course. Also as it was such a big group it was helpful for Lesley that we were there especially in the practical sessions where we were fully hands on helping with organising, preparing of materials and assisting in the sessions.

March 2010 9 day PDC in Varzea da Gonçala

•General support

•Personal Reflection

•Rosie taught Living Water

•Feedback


•May 2010 9 day PDC in Varzea da Gonçala

•May 2011 9 day PDC in Coiços Colmeal

•June 2011 9 day PDC at Mount of Oaks Povoa de Atalaia


• Good informal, chatty style

• Enjoyable

• Might help to learn to write and speak at the same time

• Speak up a bit especially with large groups


•General support



•Feedback






I really enjoyed the session, felt comfortable with the content and felt that I expressed it clearly enough for all to understand.


•General support



•Feedback






• Pre-preparation good

• Soil profile nice, liked the way you developed / adapted soil profile picture to show how sheet mulching fits in and works

• Got the job done well

• Good enjoyable session

• Maybe try to get the materials together beforehand, especially with larger groups


May 2010 9 day PDC in Varzea da Gonçala

•Josh taught Soil profile and sheet mulching

•Feedback



•Feedback


May 2011 9 day PDC in Coiços Colmeal

June 2011 9 day PDC at Mount of Oaks Povoa de Atalaia


I felt that writing on the board before the lesson helped, maybe a good way could be with big overlaying pieces of paper. Next time I will get the materials and tools together beforehand. Other than that I think it went well, everyone learnt what they needed to learn and really enjoyed the session.




•Feedback



•Feedback





• Good session, chatty and involved, inclusive.

• Still need to pick up speed, practise writing faster, maybe write bigger and wipe more to give more space.

• Be careful that lower case letters stay legible

• Be aware of sometimes needing to bring it together quickly




•Feedback



•Feedback





It was a good fun session and I received compliments from the students. I thought of some nice examples and generally it felt smoother this time. I need to be more careful in having correct information e.g trench watering is not necessarily the best to save water.




•Feedback



•Feedback





The decision to teach this session was quite last minute but was good for being flexible. We taught half the session together but then Josh had to go out to be with Lowarn. However, generally the session went well. This was quite a large group so it was an interesting challenge to fit in all the information and have time to adequately answer all the questions. The session was well received and prompted discussion and some interesting ideas from the students.




•We both taught Forest Garden -Zone 2

•Josh - Sheet mulching and soil samples practical


•Rosie - Living water and Aquaculture




Went very well, even though it was raining at the beginning of the session people were still ready to get out there and do it. It was really an enjoyably challenging task to coordinate such a large group but having prepared all the materials beforehand really helped. It all worked out well and a beautiful double spiral raised bed was the result.











It was good to teach two sessions together to know how it would feel and to develop another subject. I was pleased that I managed to bring it together in the time even though I went quite a lot over time on the first session. I didn't really manage to find a comfortable and practical arrangement of the space which made it a bit les smooth in places but generally I feel I covered everything and imparted the information clearly. I have now decided to only use capitals and am making a conscious effort to do so... even though it sill needed to be bigger. It was interesting as it was a large group and teaching space, the dynamics of the session and positioning of the board and myself had to be different... all good practise.











It was really positive to teach a totally different subject especially as this is another topic which I feel strongly about. I put some of the more complex diagrams up on the board before the lesson to save me some time although then I had to be aware that the students still needed to write it all and acount for the time they needed too. It was good to comment on the turning of the neighbours field and the soil blowing away which they had seen the day before as this gave a real world example. I had some very positive comments and everyone semed to enjoy the session. Due to it being a new subject I lost me place a few times but I think repeated teaching would make it smoother. Also there is more information I need to know on subjects to be

able to answer questions... e.g, how thick is topsoil? how many million hectares is portugal - ie think of a real world example to give a relative understanding of a figure like 5.4milion hectares





Rosie - Living Soils

Personal Reflection

Josh - Companion Planting

Personal Reflection

Josh - Soil profile and sheet mulching practical

Personal Reflection


It was very nice to teach a new subject and a subject which I have studied and researched quite a lot. Rosie writing all the notes on the board beforehand made it possible for me to go over the whole subject in a relaxed way, discussing and answering questions as we went along. I even tried to answer some questions in Portuguese that one student was having difficulty with understanding. I really enjoyed this session but I know I need to formulate my own lesson plan for it and get some more of the facts straight in my head and give a clearer example of a guild. Practise drawing chickens!






Personal Reflection


Personal Reflection


Personal Reflection


I felt that the soil profile went well, it was really nice to have such a small group as there was lots of time for Q&A and discussion. The practical was a little confused as a lot of the materials were not prepared and were all over the site. I need to make a bit more preparation in knowing that I have all I need to hand, but other than that I feel it went well.






Personal Reflection


Personal Reflection


Personal Reflection

Teaching experience Co-teaching with Daphna 9 week course

It was nice to see a different style of teaching which was far more discussion based as a result of having less time constraints in this 9 week format. There was more time for games and group building activities and because it was spread over a number of weeks people had more chance to develop relationships. Also, having the possibility to set a weekly homework meant that a certain percentage of the course is home, self led study coming back each week to share what we found / did / thought / read / experienced / observed with the group. Unfortunately we were unable to attend the design presentations at the end due to work commitments but we felt that everyone involved gained a lot from this approach to the PDC both communally and individually. We liked the fact that each Saturday session was taught at a different participants land building a greater understanding of each other's lifestyles and home habitats. Incorporated into this was that certain sites were chosen for certain sessions, an example of this is that appropriate technologies where they had examples of solar, wind and a home scale biogas digester so participants could see real life examples. At the same site we talked about education as they had taught their child at home and had experience to share, Lastly they had a big beekeeping workshop with a solar dryer / wax melter etc which fitted quite well into alternative technologies and was interesting to see. It is clear that this format of course is best suited to a fairly close local community where the participants are willing to come to a session once a week.

8th May 2010

Co teaching introduction to permaculture day

29 May 2010

Josh - Sheet mulching practical

5th June 2010

The many benefits of a tree

Josh - Net and Pan mulch pit practical

Forest Garden Lesson

1st May 2010

Two games on Alternative forms of Local Currency

Time bank - Human machine game

In a circle LETS juggle

We discussed all of the ethics and principles between ourselves including our own individual experiences, examples and interpretations of them. Daphna merely facilitated in this process and then clarified and brought together these ideas for each point with other significant examples. We found this to be a really good way of enabling people to learn the ideas behind permaculture from their own point of view. We were also facilitating in the discussion process, helping clarify issues, giving other examples and observing and learning about this method of teaching for ourselves. As a different way to illustrate input / output analysis Daphna looked at the differences between an industrial cup of tea and the most ecologically sound cup of tea. This seemed quite a good idea as it was something that everyone could contribute to discussion on whereas not everyone knows about chickens. The participants then also received the parable of the chicken handout and discussed it in groups.

8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010




1st May 2010





First of all, on this day we did a classroom session about soil levels and composting, then we went and looked at compost heaps in various stages of decomposition. Then we went and did a sheet mulch. I found it to be a slightly strange choice of site to put a sheet mulch as it was on the edge of a rocky slope which was quite hard to get water to. However the site had already been chosen by the owners of the land. Other than this it was a good, fun session and I feel that everyone got the idea.

8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010




1st May 2010





Teaching together like this was very effective as, at any one time, there is always someone to maintain discussion and conversation about the subject and answer questions which arise whilst the other is drawing or writing. We took turns in these different parts of the lesson and it made it easier for both of us, made better use of our individual skills and meant we could give a more detailed and complete explanation.

8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010

The Many Benefits of a Tree

Forest Gardens – Zone 2


1st May 2010





This was a great lesson, first we did board session showing clearly in diagrams what we were about to do; then we split the class into two groups and one came with me to do the Net and Panning the other went with Daphna to make a swale. We managed to create pits around 5 trees on the slope and mulch each pit well.

8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010



Josh - Net and Pan Mulch Pit Practical

1st May 2010





How it works

1. Each participant thinks of a service that they want to offer to the community which can be equated in hours (e.g. cooking, carpentry, hairdressing) not a product (e.g. bread, doors, a haircut)

2. They each create a brief movement for their chosen service

3. The group comes together and one by one take it in turns to assemble a machine which tells the story of the hour to hour energy flow through the community, each part of the machine performs it's function once which then makes the next part of the machine move - each time a movement is repeated it represents an hour of each persons time performing that service

Note: Throughout this game the teachers are explaining the process and function of the time bank

Interesting additions to the game - ask all participants to add a sound when they perform their motion

Intentions of this game:

1. To explain the idea and principles behind the time bank

2. To make each participant think about what services they could offer to their local community

3. To break the ice and have some fun with a living machine of flowing human energy

8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010




1st May 2010





Personal Reflection

• This was a bit of a shambles...

• People got self conscious when we asked them to perform movements one by one in the circle which made the rest of the exercise more difficult - next time we won't do the circle bit.

• They also did not understand that each movement should only be performed once in the sequence and that each movement started the next part moving, they all kept endlessly repeating their movements resulting in a malfunctioning machine.

• It still probably made them think about services they could offer but it didn't seem that they really understood the time bank... they did all get over the self consciousness and have a laugh in the end.

• Next time we'll write a lesson plan before it and now that Rosie actually understands the objective it should work better,

8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010




1st May 2010





8th May 2010


29 May 2010


5th June 2010




1st May 2010





This is a game we made up to help illustrate the functioning of a LETS system in the local community with real life services and products. It involves a circle of people throwing juggling balls in a sequence of economic events. It shows the various aspects of the LETS system including debt, oversaving and how people could start such a system in the local area. It is game and discussion based learning which seems to be an effective way to get something like this across to people new to this idea of Local Exchange Trading.

Personal ReflectionThis went better than the other game and people were generally very interested in the ideas of creating their own local currency.

Other Teaching Tools

As well as this practical experience we have been looking at a variety of permaculture teaching resources and multimedia PDCs. These include:

•Bill Mollison PDC Audio with notes

•Jeff Lawton Videos: PDC, Forest gardening, Water Harvesting, Introduction to permaculture

•Sepp Holzer Natural Farming Videos

Plus many others...

We also have a huge range of books which we have been studying and taking information from for our lesson plans. See bibliography for full details.

Teaching Experience

Summer Camps at Vale Da LamaJuly and August 2010We spent two months at Vale da Lama teaching a variety of different skills for the summer camps held on site and at a centre in a nearby town. We were teaching sessions in circus skills, yoga and stretching, marionette puppet making and mini tipi making. We both have a lot of experience teaching circus skills to children (and adults) of all ages and it was interesting to be using on a wider range of our skills to share with the children. These summer camps are open for any children / young adults to attend but was also specifically trying to provide opportunities for participants from less advantaged situations so there were links with a youth organisation in Lisbon and also with the local residential social centre / orphanage in Lagos. We always really appreciate this approach as it is great for young people from more difficult backgrounds to come and try something new and we often find that the response from them can be more enthusiastic and genuine than in some other cases. The final camp was specifically about arts and culminated in a performance in the local town which was also nice for interacting more with local people.

National / International courses

Bio-regional courses

Our PDC .mm.html

+

Fits most city/conventional working peoples holiday/free time

•Gets people out of the city

•Opens peoples' minds

•Changes habits / lifestyle

Reaches a wider group of walks of life

•Not just regional

More biodiversity in people

•Greater cultural exchange

-

Encourages International travel

Course costs higher as food and catering need

to be included

Interesting

People on standard income could pay normal rates enabling people on low income to pay a reduced rate

National / International courses PMI

Intensive 9 day PMI

+

• Less travelling

• Less polluting from fuel

• Shortest possible time to fit in 72 hours - can be the most convenient for very busy people

-• Can be a bit of a rush to get

such a vast subject into such a short time

• Not so much time for practical

• Can be gruelling for the teacher

• Especially with many people

• Not much time for one to one techer / student time

National / International courses PMIIntensive 9 day

National / International courses PMI16 days – 2 free days

Runs Saturday to Sunday

National / International courses PMI2- 7 day blocks Sunday to Saturday course with interval

2- 7 day blocks Sunday

to Saturday course with interval PMI

+• Only a week at a time so may be easier to fit into holiday/free time

• Sunday to Saturday gives one weekend day on either side for more relaxed travel

• The time between can be good for

• reflection

• self study

• homework

• Lots more time

• easier for the teacher

• for games, activities and discussion

-• Even more travel

• Might be too much time for some people to commit

Interesting• Possible to run two of these

courses at the same time, alternating weeks and groups

+

Lots of time for

•Reflection

•Self study between sessions

•For communication between teachers and students

Practical home works

•Rain gauge

•Phonological diary

•Soil sample

Really forms a very strong bioregional community

Could be the start of a local permaculture group which continues regular meetings

after

Maybe no need for catering as people could bring food to

share - you always get a better meal this way anyway

Each session could be on a different farm/land

•Participants get an insight into different applications of permaculture in different situations

•Examples

•A site which has various examples of appropriate technology

•Solar

•Wind

•Digester

•Hydro

-

Limited to local people

Can be challenging for everyone to arrive on time and when only meeting for a day or a weekend

this can create delays and disturbances

Interesting Could have many other by-products

•Permaculture Group

•LETS

•Work Share

•Seed Swaps

•Free exchange markets

•Collaborative projects

•Season specific recipe books

•Play group / Home schooling group

•Harvest celebrations

•Each farm could set up a farm shop or farm kitchen for the weekend to make use of surplus and earn some extra money

Bio-regional courses PMI

Bio-regional courses1 day every weekend or fortnight- 9 weeks

1 day every weekend or fortnight- 9 weeks PMI

+

• No need for accomodationconsideration

• May suit some people better as shorter time frame, less commitment

-

• Still very intense schedule

Bio-regional coursesEvery weekend or every other weekend- 7 weekends -

14 days

Bio-regional courses28 days spread over a year PMI

+ •Very in depth

•Lessons can be in tune with the seasons

•Mud building in the summer

•Tree planting in the autumn

•Lots of time for practicals

-•Could be too much of a commitment

for some people

•People would need to be willing to camp dependant on host site accommodation possibilities

•Could be more challenging in some seasons - hard weather

Interesting •As long as they've done at least a

certain percentage of he 28 days and present a design at the end they can still get the certificate

•Sessions could be mostly between mid spring to early autumn for chance of better weather

•Due to possible variety of sites careful planning could make it possible in colder/wetter times

•Could fit into seasonal celebrations

Other thoughtsNumber of students

• Max

• 25

• Min

• 6Discounts?

• Early bookings

• Very low price for people on low or minimal income

• Invitations to people from developing countries

• Spreading ideas to where they're needed

• Bringing a richness of other cultures into our PDC

Venue(s)

• Botanico

• Soito

• Aldeia Velha

• Farms of participants

Food?

• Catering person(s)

• Each brings a dish

• Mixture of both

• eg breakfast included but bring a dish for other meals

Our PDCsHere are two examples of how might run a PDC: one is a 16 day intensive course for a more national/international group (2 weeks with two free days - 16 days) this would be based locally, the other is a more extensive course for a bio regional group (every weekend or every other weekend - 7 weekends - 14 days) that would start and finish in Coimbra but spend the other 5 weekends on different projects within 100k of the city.The intensive course would definitely need catering but the extensive course has more scope for flexibility and could be on a bring food to share basis or the host farm could give the option of individually paying for meals. For us the local course would cost us less in fuel then the one that is based in Coimbra and surrounding farms but we feel that this bio regional course would have the most consequential positive outcomes, bringing like minded people together.

Fees

Us

• Transport if not local

• 21cents/kilometre

• Teaching fee

• 90 Euros per day

Catering if needed

• Bought food

• Three meals a day

• 10 Euros/person/day

• 16 days = 160 Euros/person

• Any surplus money from food bought goes either to

• wages of cooks

• food costs of low income participants

• Drinks - Where possible Fresh Herbal teas and Juices from the land (free), Fair Trade Coffee (coffee ban may be too extreme just yet)

• Ideally buy organic staples in bulk

• Cheaper than small quantities and better than supporting supermarkets

• If not grown on site, buy local fresh produce where possible

• Veg

• Fruit

• Cheese

• Milk

• Fuel cost

• If solely gas – up 50 euros

• Wage for cooks

Venue?

• Depends on which venue

• Even in situation where venue is free, percentage of course costs will be a donation

• Often venue benefits - eg

• Associacao - selling drinks, meals...

• Lands - people to buy produce or products on site

Our PDCs

Our PDCs16 day intensive costings – 18

ParticipantsUs Venue Catering

Teaching 16days -2 off @90€/day = 1440€

donation160€ per person for food costX 18 people = 2880€

Fuel NA 40€ per day for cooks x16 days = 640€

Cooking fuel = 50 €

=5010 € / 18 people

278.3 or 285€ for some lee way, venue donation and to improve subsequent course facilities

Our PDCs7 weekends - 14 days extensive

costing – 18 ParticipantsUs Venue Catering

Teaching 14 days @ 90/day =1260 €

Allow 5 € / weekend / person for that weekend’s venue= 90€ /weekend x 7 weekends = 630€

N/A

Fuel 0.21 cents / KmAverage 146 Km (distance to Botanico and back) = 30.70 €x 7 weekends = 214.60 €

= 2104 €/ 18 people =

116.9 or 130€ for some lee way and improvements to subsequent courses

Our PDCsAdvertising

Internet

Permaculturaportugal.ning

Portal de Permacultura

Permaculture research institute

Permaculture Association

Facebook

Magazines / Journals Newspapers

Permaculture magazine

Local Newspapers

Posters / Flyers

Cities Towns and Villages

Venues – Formal venues and Host farms

Wide spread and accessible

In Portuguese and English

Word of Mouth

Our PDC lesson order1. Group resource card

2. Introduction to Permaculture

3. Basic ethics and Principles

4. Learning strategies

5. Partner Listening / Mindmapping exercise

6. Evidence

7. lifestyle assessment

8. Design Principles

9. Location games

10. personal strategies

11. Zone 5

12. Web of life

13. Pattern

14. Obredim

15. Zones and Sectors

16. observation walk / living camera

17. climate

18. Diary of daily phenomena

19. temperate landscape profile

20. arid

21. Swales

22. Basic surveying

23. urban

24. zone 1

25. companion planting

26. zone 2 - forest garden

27. Parable of the Chicken

28. input output and relative location

29. zone 3

30. Living soil

31. soil profiles & sheet mulch

32. Composts & worms

33. Compost

34. sheet mulch & soil samples

35. no till

36. zone 4

37. The Many Function of a Tree

38. living water

39. pacing 100m

40. rain water calculation

41. aquaculture

42. sewage

43. zone 0 new natural building

44. appropriate technology

45. biological resources

46. wiser money

47. local economy games

48. bioregions

49. transition

50. design methods

51. base map theory

52. Client interview

53. Group tree mind map

54. Design presentation

Space fillers / Fit in sessions•Questions for self-observation •PMIs

Introduction to Permaculture CourseWe envision that as well as running PDCs we would also like to give Introductory courses which would give participants a clear idea of the reasons for, the essentials of and the potential of permaculture. We would help them learn about and consider some of the tools available to observe and understand the landscape around them and encourage them to look to their own zone zeros and address their own lives and take personal responsibility for the choices they make and the action they take. We would hope to personally inspire them to step out on their own path of learning and designing, following their own interests and passions.We have designed a course structure which could be combined very well with the 16 day intensive PDC course creating very interesting dynamics, edge effects and enriching the whole course experience for both groups. The Introductory students would participate in the first two days of the PDC, attending all the same lessons and activities as the PDC students. At the end of the second day we would set them some homework, e.g. Diary of daily phenomena for two weeks, think about how you can make positive change in you life and global impact... They will also work on a small element design (eg How could I best incorporate chickens into my garden?) This will be chosen by them dependant on their personal situation and interests.They will then return for the last two days of the PDC. On the Saturday, while the PDC students are immersed in the design process we will have a feedback session on their progress in, reflection on the last two weeks and presentations of their designs just for us and the other introductory students. This could then be followed, on the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, by student led learning sessions of some of the selected lessons from the PDC which best reflect the groups’ interests.They will then attend the design presentations of the PDC students so that they can get a different perspective of design in the larger scale land based designs generated by the complete design course.We then hope that these students would want to continue to the design course and, if they wanted, could perhaps join the course after the first two days, paying a little less and still attending the whole course.

Teaching Design SummaryThis design comprises some of our thoughts and plans for teaching Permaculture, as you can see we have put a lot of thought to this subject as it is very important to us and it was not possible to include all of the ideas we have had. We are also aware that these course plans can be developed much further and after the accreditation we will continue this process, working to improve and expand upon these proposed structures and content. We plan to begin by running a series of in depth introductory courses which will give us more confidence in our teaching approach and methods and give us opportunities to test and refine our lesson plans.

In doing this design we have also realised that there is probably a need to set up an ethical non profit organisation to be a “sink” account for any money made from courses beyond the course costs and ensuring everyone is paid. This fund could be put to various different positive uses some examples are:• Furthering possibilities of involving more non paying participants from the two thirds world or enabling courses to be run in such communities.• Permaculture in the Lar / government funded orphanage, residential centre for young and old people – involving orphans, socially less privileged and physically less able in projects improving their surroundings and the grounds of the centre • Reforestation projects in Portugal• Permaculture Humanitarian Aid projects – see TPRF project proposals for more details

© Copyright 2011 Rosie Stonehill and Josh Gomez

permaculture teaching

Education

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mountof oaks povoa

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comfortable withcoteaching

good fun session

lesley soil profile