2011 Vermont Permaculture Design Course

Utilizing the incomparable Whole Systems Research Farm permaculture site in Vermont’s Mad River Valley, our design studio resources, and a team of leading facilitators, Whole Systems Design, Keith Morris and Lisa DePiano present the first of many permaculture design courses to be offered in the coming decades.  This certification course will be held July 31st to August 12th, 2011 at the Whole Systems Design Studio and Research Farm site. 

This course offers an unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on applied permaculture skills immersed within one of North America’s most diverse and intensive permaculture research sites.  Participants will engage with high-performance home and community resource systems that will be more resilient in the face of problems posed by peak oil, climate change, environmental toxicity, and the inability of existing economic and social systems to deal with such challenges.

This course includes the standard certificate curriculum but goes way beyond the typical Designer’s Certification Course by utilizing the background of skills-based trainings offered in Whole Systems Skills, and information-based study.  Students in this course will not walk and is filled with practice-based, learning-by-doing experiences, not only concept away from the experience without basic post-peak oil resiliency literacy including: how to plant a tree, fell a tree, split firewood, harvest biomass with a sycthe and sharpen it, sharpen and maintain other basic tools, perform earthworks, plumb basic waterworks and harvest water, inoculate mushroom logs and spread mushroom patches and innumerable other hard skills available to us via our working homestead, farm and practitioner-teachers.

Unlike at many permaculture course, we will actually be practicing these techniques on the farm throughout the course.

Course Highlights

• Immersion and practice in one of the most sophisticated permaculture sites in North America.

• Living at a beautiful site in the heart of Vermont, in the Mad River Valley.  See more here.
  

• Ecological design and engineering pioneer John Todd anchors a team of guest instructors and visiting presenters.
  

• Field trips to regional sites to see models of permaculture strategies in action.

There will be a first-come-first-served opportunity for a 3 day applied permaculture practicum after the course where a small group of course students will have the opportunity to practice permaculture all day, each day, on the research farm site.

Course Instructors

Keith Morris – Propect Rock Permaculture

Lisa DePiano – Montview Neighborhood Farm

Ben Falk, M.A.L.D. - Whole Systems Design

Cornelius Murphy – Whole Systems Design

To learn more and register for a place in the course, please visit our website.