Permaculture and Green Schools
Workshop leader: Marcel Susko, Slovakia
Format: Group sharing of projects with schools and children
Overview
About implementation of permaculture design and permaculture projects at schools. Inspirative successful case studies, new discoveries and challenges. Sharing and searching for new creative ideas for working with children on permaculture projects. Database of inspirative supportive teaching materials, networks, projects, people, useful contacts etc.
Summary
The workshop focused on several different inspirational projects where children’s gardens where created. The key aspect in all of these projects was the social involvement with the teachers parents and children that enabled the garden and project to happen rather than the design process itself.
Key Points
- Tips for success in projects
- Flexibility as projects develop
- Build up confidence in teachers – enables exit from project
- Get whole school involved with one key contact/liaison person
- Needs kids total integration in the design process
- Need to make it different from the classroom to get kids interested with adults being more like children than teachers, and then the garden can become the teacher/classroom
- Interesting tools used
- Creating a website where children can add pictures etc about the garden/project development getting funding from gardening groups, department of health and farmers markets (where produce is then sold there)
- Roleplay of design where children are all elements and they become the garden and then all the elements that are not present in their school yard are asked to sit down
[Scribe: Looby Macnamara]