Subject: Permaculture Training Online

From: [email-masked] (Elfpermacl)
Date: 7 Oct 1996 10:46:51 -0400

Do You Want Permaculture Programs On Line?

We've been answering many questions about permaculture and related topics
online, and we have become interested to learn if people would like a
formal offering. Please email us if you would consider participating in
the following.

1)  A permaculture correspondence course with an email classroom.  We have
had very little interest in the correspondence course we have offered for
well over a decade.  Partially this is because, besides making an
information sheet available, we never marketed it.  Because it a
correspondence course requires teaching one person on a custom basis, the
price for the print correspondence course is much higher than one that
many people attend in person.  By enrolling a number of people at once,
and conducting lessons and class discussion by email, we could enable
people to take a certificate permaculture design course of high quality
for rather less than the correspondence course. Moreover, it would be a
simple matter to enable some people to monitor the course (not for
certification) at a lower fee.  The course would mix email instructions
with print media for maximum effectiveness.  It would probably extend over
a period of months to enable people to participate without displacing
their regular life activities.  Each certificate student would prepare and
submit a permaculture design for a real place as a final exam.

2)  Permaculture design workshops can be scheduled according to the above
model.  Because students will be physically isolated, they will work on
individual designs, instead of in teams.  However, possibly teams set up
to toss around each others designs, rather like what is done in writers
workshops.

3)  A permaculture clinic could be set up.  In the clinic, we would help
people with specific problems, with various members contributing
suggestions and critiques.

4)  Advanced seminars for working permaculture teachers and designers.

The main limitation to all these approaches to permaculture training is
that we will not all walk the same site together, so we will not get the
site interpretation info.  Possibly that could be overcome by conducting a
weekend workshop on a design site and building longer design training and
instructions around that shared experience.  We will discuss that option
with people who say that they are interested.  

A second limitation is that we see no practical means to include our very
effective slide presentations. These are for sale as slide/script
packages, but there are too expensive for most people to use for their
personal education.

Please let us know if you are interested and share any other ideas or
feedback about these concepts, which are subject to improvement as ideas
come in.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design
Courses, consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and The Forest
Ecosystem Food Network.  [email-masked]  Copyright, Dan & Cynthia
Hemenway, P.O. Box 2052, Ocala FL 34478-2052 USA

If it's not in our food chain, we're not thinking.

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From: [email-masked] (JUHLING)
Date: 12 Oct 1996 09:59:47 -0400

This may not be the placee to ask, but other people may be wondering
too...

What is "permaculture?"

[email-masked]