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PDC with Peter Bane – Spring 2014

The Resiliency Institute is hosting a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with Peter Bane this coming spring.  The course is tailored to suburban working adults and will be hosted over three weekends (4-3-3) in March and April. Only 25 seats are available, so register today!

A PDC opens your eyes to designing resilient systems for lifestyle, land and community.  The course will cover the core permaculture ethics, principles, and practices. We will introduce you to good design through classroom experiences, field trips, and hands-on activities.  Intro to Permaculture cover

Permaculture is an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of our lives. Permaculture teaches us how to build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities, take care of waste and much more.

The philosophy within permaculture is one of working with rather than against nature, and of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than premature and thoughtless action. Permaculture design techniques encourage land use which integrates principles of ecology and applies lessons from nature. It teaches us to create settings and construct ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and the resilience of natural ecosystems. In the spirit of sustainability, it also teaches us to allow natural and designed ecosystems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

You can make Permaculture design a career, or choose to incorporate the principles in your own discipline.  The certificate gives the holder the right to use the word “permaculture” in a business or other professional practice, and signifies successful completion of the permaculture design course. It is the prerequisite to further training in permaculture design such as teacher training courses, and other advanced permaculture trainings. The design course is the first step in becoming a permaculture practitioner, whether in design, education, construction, or any one of many other fields.  Holders of the certificate join a growing community of many thousands of design-course graduates who share a common body of knowledge.  This course has been approved for 35 APLD CEUs.

A $200 deposit reserves your seat, so register today

March 13-16 Thursday & Friday
Saturday & Sunday
8:30 am – 6 pm
9:00 am – 6 pm
April 11-13 &
April 25-27
Fridays
Saturdays & Sundays
8:30 am – 6 pm
9:00 am – 6 pm

 

Peter BanePeter Bane is the primary instructor for the course.  Peter has published Permaculture Activist magazine for over 20 years and has taught permaculture design widely in the temperate and tropical Americas. He is a native of the Illinois prairie whose interest in good food and simple living led him at mid-life to become a writer and teacher of permaculture design. They also drew him into the arcane world of intentional community as fate presented the opportunity to help create and build Earthaven Ecovillage in the southern Appalachian Mountains. There he discovered his inner architect in the course of building a small off-grid solar cabin and later took on the more prosaic job of rehabilitating a pair of suburban ranch houses in the Midwestern college town of Bloomington, Indiana. That was the first step toward creating a small suburban farmstead where he now lives with his partner and apprentices. A prolific writer in journals and collections on forestry, building and all things sustainable, he consults with universities and municipal governments as well as for private landowners.

Education

Edible Wild Plant classThe Resiliency Institute offers evening and weekend classes, workshops, and certification courses. Classes are taught by knowledgeable and experienced regional instructors with class sizes ranging from 6 -30 attendees. Whether you are a novice or an expert, you will find a class that is right for you.

Most education courses, unless otherwise noted, are taught at the Clow Education Center on The Conservation Foundation's McDonald Farm at 10S404 Knoch Knolls Road in Naperville, IL.

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PERMACULTURE

permaculture, principles, ethics, circular, sustainable, icons, text
Permaculture Principles

 

The word “permaculture” was coined and popularized in the mid 70′s by David Holmgren, a young Australian ecologist, and his associate / professor, Bill Mollison. It is a contraction of “permanent agriculture” or “permanent culture.”

Permaculture is a design system based on observing nature for developing ecological landscapes, lifestyles and communities. "Permaculture is not a discipline in itself but rather a design approach based on connecting different disciplines, strategies, and techniques." (Hemenway, Gaia's Garden)

 

 

CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS

Permaculture Design Certification

Peter Bane PDC water levelThe Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course is a training program that utilizes the teachings of Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Design System. The goal is to achieve a basic working understanding in ecologically-based planning, site design and management. A PDC provides a comprehensive introduction to Permaculture principles, applications and design practices as first set out by Permaculture founder, Bill Mollison. The PDC meets a common international standard as a foundational course for Permaculture practitioners and teachers. At The Resiliency Institute, the course is taught by Peter Bane, Rhonda Baird, & Keith Johnson over 3 extended weekends for a total of 11 days and 88 hrs.

 

Edible Wild Plants Certification

Pat Armstrong-Suburban Prairie_TRI 2013Open your eyes to the world of foraging with our Edible Wild Plants Certificate. Each season a five to six week course is offered to teach you how to identify plants, what edible wild plants to look for, what part of the plant to harvest; how to harvest it, prepare it, and eat it. You will learn to identify over 200 species of edible wild plants from handling actual specimens and from seeing them in their natural environments.

The Edible Wild Plants Certificate courses (Taste the Trees, Graze on Greens, Feast on Flowers, & Sup on Shrubs) are taught both in a classroom and through site visits to various public and private locations to provide a comprehensive experience of the plants.  To earn your certificate, you are required to take all four courses and pass four seasonal exams (using your notes and books) to demonstrate that you can identify edible (and poisonous) wild plants successfully.  These courses will be offered each year, so if you miss one, you can take it the following year.  Certificate courses are open to everyone, whether or not you’re pursuing the certificate.

Students prepare recipes during each course using edible wild plants to demonstrate their new knowledge and to share with classmates. A full year of recipes are compiled into a recipe book and given to each certificate recipient during the annual graduation ceremony.

 

RESKILLING

Water bath canned salsa
Water bath canned salsa

Reskilling is learning the skills we need to become self-sufficient and resilient as individuals and communities during a time of economic and climatic change. These skills span the spectrum of land management; food production, preservation and preparation; sustainable living; community building; water management; renewable energy; and ecological building. Classes can be viewed by category or date on our course calendar.