This 8-week, after school program, covers the ethics, principles and practices of permaculture for the junior garden architect. It teaches students new ideas, ways of thinking and a change in how we feel about growing food, and teaches the next generation of kids about Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share to usher in a greener and brighter future!
Commencing Wednesday 7 October and continuing every Wednesday up to and including Wednesday 25 November.
The Program
- Ethics, Principles and Compost Building
Building a Permaculture garden isn’t just about digging vegetable beds, it is a blank canvas for new ideas, ways of thinking and a change in how we feel about growing food! In this session we will learn how our thoughts, feelings and actions dramatically effect the environment around us and how we can collaborate as team to listen to nature, our hearts and each other to build a brighter, greener future.
- Sun and Wind
Learn how to read the sun’s solar pathways and the movements of the prevailing winds so you can know exactly where to place your vegetable garden
- Earth and Water
Understand how to Read the Landscape using homemade measuring tools so you can design your garden to capture an abundance of Mother nature’s energy
- Design and Zones
Map out your energy-efficient Permaculture garden and connect all of the working parts together so your design can last the test of time!
- Vegetable beds and soil health
Turn your beautiful permaculture design into a reality by measuring up and digging your first vegetable bed. Learn how to make energy efficient, weed blocking and self-feeding “Worm Lasagnes”
- Composting and Planting
Learn how to ‘companion plant’ in your garden so every vegetable bed is full of happy little plants!
- Bug Squad
Pest or Pollinator? Learn how to identify the critters in our garden and what role they play in the grand scheme of life! Are they helping or hindering our efforts?
- Food Forestry
How do we regenerate our landscape AND feed the soil food web, people and animals? By designing and building a food forest. Learn how to fix bare soils with the succession planting of fruit trees.
As you can see, this program is designed for the student who is interested in observing, thinking, researching, planning and designing.
All sessions are hands-on, with lots of measuring, drawing, and creating; and if you are unsure if this more serious program would suit your child, please contact Aaron Mears on aaron.m@lvingclassroom.com.au.
PLEASE NOTE:
As a hands-on activity, and for maximum learning ability, numbers are capped for this session so BOOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL. Please BOOK HERE for all EIGHT Sessions
Presenters Name: Living Classroom – Aaron, Veronica or Dan
Presenter’s Biography:
The Living Classroom Project is an outdoor learning program that has been functioning for over 17 years in schools across NSW and Queensland. They have turned pavement plots, toxic playgrounds and barren patches of lawn into fun, dynamic and nutritious outdoor learning environments that students thrive in.
Using experiential, hands-on learning, the programs are tailored to primary and secondary school students, introducing them to the principles and practices of permaculture design, to build and plant organic vegetable gardens, at both home and school.
Living Classroom is different from other gardening progams in that we create seating circles, bed designs, 4 seasons vegetable gardens tied in with water harvesting via swales, food forestry to improve micro-climate of playgrounds, and cafeteria composting – lunch to soil.
All teachers have degrees in Education, the Principal is a qualified landscape architect, and 2 of the educators are PDC qualified.
The principles demonstrated in all Living Classroom programs support disaster prevention and crisis management.
gency and a new way of living and working needs to be made visible. Western society lives way beyond its means – we are experiencing a consumption crisis. If everyone, for example, lived like the typical Australian, we would need 4 earths to meet our ‘needs’ and absorb our wastes – called our ‘ecological footprint’. In fact, everything we’ve been doing from April onwards has been eating into earth’s capacity to regenerate, and taking from nature and future generations. Australia’s overshoot day – when we exceeded our ecological budget – was at the end of March! Global consumption patterns are eroding earth’s capacity to support human activity and life itself.
