Permaculture Design Course via MOOC's

July 3, 2014


Could someone please forward this message to Geoff Lawton?


Dear Mr. Lawton,


Have you considered developing a Permaculture Design Course via MOOC's


https://www.coursera.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course



Regards,



Axil


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I personally prefer edx.org

Which FREE courses @ https://www.edx.org/ are related to PC Design?

I don't think Alex was implying that there were existing free permaculture design courses on edx.org - merely it's an alternative platform.

However, there are several free courses that could be of value to any permie - such as the few I list below:

Technology for Biobased Products Why? Permaculture is a design science based on living things - the idea is to meet the majority of our needs from regenerative materials (living materials).

Introduction to Water and Climate Why? Water and Climate (along with land profile and setting) are used to determine which elements to include in a permaculture design and HOW to incorporate them. For instance water and climate are going to determine your soils, your plant profile, the best animals for your site, house design and on and on.

Natural Disasters Why? Permaculture systems need to be resilient to disasters. Also understanding the types of disasters that might affect you will enable you to design better systems.

Tropical Coastal Ecosystems

Global Warming Science

Exactly Jennifer!

Although I am doing The Meat we Eat on coursera to check out the platform, give it a fair shake.

Thanks for the links Jennifer,

Check out the following offered by Coursera ...

1 - Climate Change in Four Dimensions - (Currently Running) This course views climate change from a variety of perspectives at the intersection of the natural sciences, technology, and the social sciences and humanities.

2 - Geodesign: Change Your World - What happens when creativity and science come together? The power to design our world is unleashed, providing tools to inform choices about how we live! Geodesign is the glue—it’s a process that deploys creativity to connect information to people, using collaboration to better inform how we design our world.

3 - The Dynamic Earth: A Course for Educators - How and why is the Earth constantly changing? How do scientists reconstruct events in Earth's geologic history? This course explores the origin and evolution of the Earth and provides resources for educational use.

4 - Introduction to Environmental Law and Policy - Environmental law may be the one institution standing between us and planetary exhaustion. It is also an institution that needs to be reconciled with human liberty and economic aspirations. This course considers these issues and provides a tour though existing legal regimes governing pollution, water law, endangered species, toxic substances, environmental impact analyses, and environmental risk.


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Cool! Thanks Axil! So much great free stuff. Wow.

Nice I'm signing up for Technology for Biobased Products and Geodesign: Change Your World.

I got my certificate in Tropical Coastal Ecosystems, what a great class!

Take your pick ...

Courses Available

All Categories

Examples:

- Biology & Life Sciences

- Energy & Earth Sciences

- Humanities

- Physical & Earth Sciences

- Social Sciences


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Isn't Geoff Lawton located in Australia?

If he hasn't already researched Mooc's, Geoff could get in touch with the following affiliated universities in his country.

https://www.coursera.org/about/partners/country/australia

Coursera's university sponsored online classes are usually heavily subsidized, which I assume is one reason why the Specialization Certificates are so affordable.

Due to the mass appeal of these interactive Mooc's, some courses have attracted upwards of 50 thousand participants.


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I'm purely speculating here but I think the problem with Geoff doing this is type of thing that he depends on the income generated from his class to fund several non-profit Master Planned sites around the world until they can become self-sufficient. These sites are in places that are facing incredible ecosystem challenges, some serve large populations of refugees and some are in war torn areas. Personally - I want Geoff to be able to channel funding to these endeavors as for many people, these sites allow them to survive. This is critical work. He is not a large university with multiple income streams from grants, foundations, research funding or tax monies.

It is really intriguing to think about though. Perhaps this is something that he will move towards.

Hopefully in the near future, Geoff's Team could investigate developing a Mooc as a side project.