THE COURSE: Format and Content
The course will be an 80-hour Permaculture Design Certificate Course spread out over 14 days. This ample time allows students to digest the material, get hands-on experience and work thoroughly on the final design project and presentation. The course will be certified through TreeYo Permaculture as we are guided by Bill Mollison’s curriculum that comprises the 14 chapters of his book “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual”. Our schedule reflects this commitment and has a strong emphasis on how the design principles and process influence site develop and systems management while always acknowledging the people care side of it all. This course will help you gain confidence in setting up land based designs but also the inextricable link with creative integration of humans.
We will cover the following topics throughout the course:
- Ethics, Principles, and Methods of Permaculture Design
- Pattern Understanding: Interpretation and Application
- Climatic Factors: Broad Climatic Zones and Microclimate – Effects on Landscape and Design
- Water: Harvesting, Conservation, Purification, and Revitalization
- Trees and their Energy Transactions: SoilWaterTrees
- Soils: Classification, Food Web, and Restoration
- Aquaculture: Food Web, Aquatic Plants, Chinampas, Tyre Ponds, Water Quality Parameters
- Animal Systems: Integrate worms, chickens, goats, and many other animals in your design
- Strategies for Tropical, Dry-land, and Temperate Climates: Influences on Vegetation, Housing, and Earthworks
- Introduction to Natural Building: Earth as a Building Material
- Fermentation and Nutrition: Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Sourdough Bread and Pickles
- Local Food Systems: CSA-Community Supported Agriculture, Cooperatives, Food-Coops
- Social and Economic Permaculture: Bio-Regional Organisation, Living in Communities, Transition Towns and Local Resiliency
- And last but not least: Lot´s of laugh, fun and happy faces, music, music, music, a sound journey, drumming, dancing – in the mud and around the bonfire, trips to crystal clear swimming ponds, centuries old forests, yoga, group activities and lot’s of work! A Transformation of Your Life is guaranteed at this one of a kind project!
Course fee: 600€ (Early Bird Registration of 550€ until March 31st)
A limited amount of scholarships for Eastern European residents under 26 available.
****includes accomodation on the hay attic in own sleeping bag and all meals that are delicious and homemade ****
A limited amount of sleeping spaces on beds indoors is also available
For more information on accomodation and scholarships and to register contact the following:
and to get a sense of the location
click here for a film about strawbale building
or watch TreeYo‘s PDC 2013 Movie
FINAL DESIGN PROJECTS
The course will end with the required student design projects that will utilize the landscape around Terra Alta, which is where participants camp. By using an actual physical site for the design projects, students will gain the experience of completing a full design from walking the land during the initial assessment to mapping and measuring to client interviews and final presentations.
From the Nomad Network design project at Terra Alta-2013
The process behind the design project increases learner retention through immediate application and direct practice of learned skills while offering a means to evaluates students’ comprehension of the course. Successful, effective, and certified Permaculture designers are accelerated in this course for a future of meaningful work and regenerative practices.
The final design project is also considered to be a direct hands-on project because students will be engaged in a process that will yield a viable design proposal and it is a design course after all. Our commitment to practicing the design principles throughout the course process itself reinforces the theory and lecture sessions. Concurrently, to bring the material alive the course is facilitated so that numerous learning styles are supported. We honor diversity as one of our teaching techniques is through design exercises that compliment the lecture material, demonstrates the design process, and adds to the fun atmosphere.
For more information about our past courses visit the following page: Previous TreeYo Courses.
The HANDS-ON SEGMENT:
Another integral part of the course is the hands-on segment because it integrates the techniques directly to your body. Proposed hands-on segments for the course are:
- Hot Compost Pile Making and turning throughout the course to address fertility maintenance
Terra Alta Hands on 2011
- Small-scale Earthworks to address rainwater runoff issues and feed associated plantings
- Natural Building Project on a small scale
- Plant Propagation as a way to learn different techniques to quickly fill up a site with useful plants at a low cost
- Food Fermentation as a way to connect food production with culture with health and season extension (and we get to eat and drink them!!!!!!)
- Final Design Project for immediate application and direct practice of learned skills
The TEACHER
Doug Crouch: With nine courses already under our belt at the outstanding community of Escola da Terra and Terra Alta, TreeYo Permaculture facilitator Doug Crouch will be putting on the annual course for 2015 combined with Pedro Valdiju, his long running teaching partner in Portugal. Doug will continue as the main facilitator of this year’s course. His formal background is in ecology and has been practicing and teaching Permaculture for nearly ten years in different parts of the world covering all climatic zones. He holds a Diploma in Permaculture Education which demonstrates his commitment to crafting his creative facilitation style. Because Portugal is the longest running host site for TreeYo, the local support team is quite familiar with the TreeYo facilitation style and process. To view some of the presentation you can expect during the course via PowerPoint, please visit Doug’s slideshare account at the following: www.slideshare.net/DougeCrouch