hi everyone
        here is an article that Dave White wrote for Hopedance Issue Permaculture "A Quiet Revolution" Nov/Dec 2001 www.hopedance.org And follow up message Dave sent about a grant he got to aid his Permaculture Work at Happy Valley School in Ojai Ca
                wes
Great news!
The Happy Valley Foundation has been awarded a $6,000 grant for environmental projects by the Star Fund of the Tides Foundation, on the recommendation of Angela and Anthony Ocone. These funds will provide support for the school's Permaculture program and help its outreach to other educational centers through July 2002.
Permaculture at Happy Valley continues to thrive!
David R White PhD
Environmental Coordinator
Happy Valley School
PO Box 850
Ojai, CA 93024
(805) 646 4343
http:www.hvalley.org



Permaculture and Education.  David R White PhD.  October 10th, 2001
        Teaching our children about the environment can become a listing of dire scenarios. Global warming, ozone depletion, pollution, topsoil loss, diversity loss and overpopulation provide a daunting curriculum.  Permaculture design is an all encompassing, positive approach to the environment that students can easily understand and relate to.  I have spent the last 5 years teaching a Permaculture curriculum for high school students at the Happy Valley School in the Upper Ojai Valley, Ventura County.  This curriculum is land based, hands-on and does not stop at the school's gates; rather it  reaches into the local community through adult education on the land, seminars and slide shows.  In the essay I will detail some of the teaching strategies I use.
        One of my first lesson plans of the year for my environmental science class is a visit to an undisturbed native climax community, in our case a hillside of coast live oaks. These provide a wealth of information to the observant.  Perhaps most importantly they providing the student with a clear understanding of natural soil production.  Building soils by mimicking natural soil production through mulching  provides a key hands-on component of this class throughout the year.
        Another early lesson is to achieve an overview of the campus, from  surrounding vantage points and maps, to distinguish on-site from off-site resources.  The clear connection between fossil-fueled transportation for off-site resources, with all its attendant, multi-faceted problems, can be made at this point .  Emphasizing and utilizing on-site resources is a key theme of this Permaculture class.  Students design and build methods for using the on-site resources of sun, rain and food.  Making A-frame levels and cutting swales or ditches on contour can be a fun and effective lesson theme, although extensive earth moving has to be coordinated with other land management interests, most importantly weed abatement in our semi-rural location.  No point in building swales which are disced over in the spring.  An important aspect of  Permaculture education is the coordination of land management.  Teaching our grounds crew to disc and mow on contour, and by providing low growing drought tolerant ground cover for them to mow helps increase rain water percolation and reduce erosion at our site.
        Producing food on site is an aspect of Permaculture design that many schools have embraced at least symbolically.  Strawberries along a pathway make a walk a treat.  However, initial enthusiasm for garden construction can dwindle, especially if the garden is built far from paths well traveled.  Small gardens would probably do best to focus on flower production with occasional food plants intermingled.  Bunches of flowers on the administrators desk are a sure way to garner support.  Perennial plantings are emphasized.  The reality of producing the daily food needs  for a school is overwhelming for most, although successful programs exist at Midland, Pacific High, Oak Grove and Happy Valley schools.  We have been most successful by leasing land adjacent to the school to an organic farmer.  This interface has proven to be a fertile edge at Happy Valley, with students gaining from the farmer's input and vice versa.
        Tree planting has long been recognized as a celebratory marking of our lives on earth.   Planting and caring for trees is a central focus of Happy Valley's Permaculture program.  This private high school now has approximately 100  diverse fruit trees planted by students around its campus.  This focus on perennial food production requires that appropriate trees are chosen and planted in places where they will thrive.  This includes choosing trees that fruit during the school year.  We have had success with apples, pears, nectarines, mulberries, walnuts, Asian persimmons and citrus.  Our avocados are an experiment in micro-climates, planted on our south facing, frost draining hillsides. Burgeoning crops of apricots in August have little teaching impact on students during summer vacation, although the presence of a commercial kitchen could allow for value to be added to this food production through canning, drying or otherwise preserving.
        Composting is another hands on tool integrated into the Happy Valley Permaculture curriculum.  It mimics the natural pattern of turning waste into food.  For the science teacher, the compost pile provides many lesson plans, such as classification of soil biota.  Composting completes the cycle between the kitchen and the land.  Straw bales provide an easily maneuverable carbon source to balance the high nitrogen waste.  Composting clean kitchen scraps is less messy than processing slops, although this could be done with appropriate space and management, perhaps in the form of a worm composting facility.  As landfill space continues to become more expensive, the dumping of slops into trash should become a thing of the past and we should see more support for innovative green waste composting.  An overview of green waste disposal becomes the purview of a Permaculture coordinator.  The grounds crew cut brush and mow, but what happens to the trimmings.  Are they trashed or burned?.!
 We have moved toward processing brush on site by arranging it in wind-rows and having a neighboring farmer come over and flail it for us.  This mulches some of our orchards and provides the carbon input for large scale composting, if the equipment (a front loader) and trained personnel are available.
        Most schools will have only limited funds available to support a Permaculture program.  To ensure that students are taught a proactive approach to the environment,  it is vital that all schools provide support for an effective environmental coordinator.  Realistically, a successful Permaculture program will require some creative funding.  Small grants are available for garden programs and other innovative teaching methods.  The Hansen trust in Ventura County funds school gardens.  Amgen provides educational mini grants. Check with your county library for grant information.  The Ventura County Community Foundation in Camarillo  and the Santa Barbara City Library have the Foundation Directory for searching for grant information.  Donations can be solicited from appropriate parties.  Be bold about asking for funding, this is important work.  Internship funding for key roles, such as composting or harvesting from the garden for the kitchen can encourage students to become more di!
rectly involved.   Happy Valley School has links to the Evergreen College in Washington and Oberlin College in Ohio, who send students to teach and learn.  This is particularly useful in January, when we prune our trees to prevent disease and damage from fruit overload.
                A hands-on procedure which is both soil building and mulching and uses on-site resources is the planting of soil builder mix.  Growing nitrogen fixing legumes such as peas, beans and vetch and carbon fixing cereals such as oats, barley or triticale creates fertile soil, diverse habitat and provides mulch which students can cut with hand sickles and pile around their trees.  Mulch is grown where it is needed, producing fertility locally.  We also sow seeds of insectary plants such as calendula, and in a lesson on vegetative propagation we transplant mints, such as lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, spearmint and peppermint, which attract beneficial insects and act as ground cover. Students are responsible for creating mini- gardens around each tree.  On hillsides they sculpt and terrace the landscape around the tree to maximize water percolation.  Plans are based on staking out contours using bunyip, A-frame or builders bubble levels. Disturbed soil is seeded for soil building and beneficial insect habitat, with emphasis on cuttings and seed collection from surrounding plantings.  Earthworks are mulched where possible with cardboard, straw, wood chips and compost to augment the soil.  Moving wheelbarrows full of mulch is a good workout for all students.  Plantings are amended with mycorhizzae and the micro nutrients and minerals found in river sand, bone and blood meal. Students fertilize their trees with feather meal which is 14% protein.  Commercial growers aim for one pound of nitrogen per tree per year.
        A basic principle of Permaculture Design is that of multiple functions from a single element.  Using this template experiments on seed germination can use food plants, such as tomatoes, which can then be planted out in the garden. Companion planting and plant guild creation can also be experimented with.  Fast growing trees can be planted with vines, ground cover and root crops around them.  The shrub layer can include the beautiful native ceanothus which is a nitrogen fixer.  Plant guilds can also be setup in large containers. Students learn about the seven layers of forestry and try to fill as many niches as possible.  Ground covers of strawberry and mint with vines like kiwi, passion fruit or grape can be planted with a variety of different trees.  Use caution planting fast growing grapes; these will smother semi-dwarf fruit trees unless intensively managed on an annual basis.
        Happy Valley School also has a circular fifty-five foot diameter fenced garden which is currently laid out with 16 keyhole beds in a mandala pattern.  Each student in the biology class has a bed for experiments.  This years theme is carbon fixation.  Students participate in planting and harvesting in the neighboring organic farm, and their Permaculture curriculum also includes native regeneration in both upland and riparian areas.  Student progress is monitored through their journals in which they keep  a record of all that goes on in the class; their homework is their journal.  In the field we witness a wide array of natural phenomena.  Snakes, all manner of insects, tarantulas, toads, vultures, deer, swallows or frogs have been encountered.  Students are encouraged to research these natural surprises and present their findings to the class for extra-credit.  Many create beautiful journals filled with their own illustrations and photographs.  I use "Introduction to Permaculture" as a text.  I give a practical exam based on plant identification which requires that students know the roles of various plants in the environment (pioneer, invasive, insectary, nitrogen fixer, edible, etc.), and they answer essay questions on Permaculture design in a final exam.
        By teaching Permaculture design we are sharing a vision of ecotopia.  This template can be recreated effectively at any number of different centers of education. New synergies of information are being forged daily.  Educational supervisors need to hear more requests for proactive environmental education such as is provided by a Permaculture curriculum.  Permaculture constitutes a paradigm shift.    It truly represents a positive approach to our future.

David Robert White PhD   is a Permaculture Design Course Graduate in 1997 , the Environmental Coordinator at Happy Valley School in charge of Permaculture Education and maintenance of the site ,have asked him for more bio 
artdetour@mac.com
PO Box 973, Ojai, CA 93024
(805) 646 9809
http://artdetour.com