Permaculture Design Course in Reno, NV in March 2013

I'm collaborating with Urban Roots Garden Classrooms to host an alternative spring break PDC. The course dates are March 9-10th and March 16-24th.

Guest Teachers will include Owen Hablutzel, Jana Vandeerhar, and more, and we will visit several local sites of varying scales from urban to suburban to school gardens to rural and broad acre at different ages from first year to 15+ years of development to learn through observation and sharing the stories of success and failures that have been encountered along the way. Through a developing partnership with UNR, Urban Roots is beginning a FarmCorps program to contribute to the generation of a small farm incubator program for young agrarians at the University. The FarmCorps program will also continue the development of farm-to-school programs, some of which we will visit. This is a great opportunity to experience the emerging connectivity of our local food systems and co-create ways to integrate into it.

Design project options include a designing a sustainable arid land agriculture research center at local University land and youth center striving to become a community food center.
Both these projects are currently in transition from conventional systems and are real world opportunities to present possibilities to leverage good design at the planning and development stage.

We are offering both a local resident option and are providing housing for an additional cost. All meals are available to all participants during the course.

Please visit the Urban Roots website http://www.urgc.org/ to see a more detailed description and for registration.

If you would like to inquire more about the course specifics please email me neilbertrando at gmail.com

I'm excited to announce my first blog post on PRI USA was just published with discusses the development of Permaculture education and the Modern US education system.

http://www.permacultureusa.org/2013/02/11/permaculture-education-and-research-in-usa-expanding-connectivity-between-islands-of-fertility/

In it I do some work developing the Scale of Permanence from Yeomans Keyline scale to a broader range of application building on the work of Rafter Sass Ferguson and Owen Hablutzel (Owen will be teaching the grazing and broad acre mgmt section of the upcoming PDC).

I'd love comments and thoughts. Post them here or at PRI.

Also, I'm sad to say I didn't include the work of Michael Becker in the article, and I want to acknowledge that he has done some of the most progressive permaculture work in the usa school system.

If you or anyone you know is interested in the upcoming PDC, contact Urban Roots and/or register at http://www.urgc.org/home/permaculture-design-course/

cheers,
Neil