Why Do A Permaculture Design Course?
The most important reason to do a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) is to build your skills to design a more efficient, co-operative and eco-friendly lifestyle for yourself. We believe in walking the talk – living the lifestyle that we help others to develop. This course enables much more. You can develop a specialist field, teach others, set up helpful projects in the community and run a business related to Permaculture.
The Permaculture Design Course (PDC) helps use the term permaculture in your business and home activities. The PDC has been an industry accepted level of competency since 1970s when it was introduced by Bill Mollison. If you do not have any industry accepted level of attainment you may be in breech of the trade practices act in that you may be purporting to be “knowledgeable and trained” in the topic, but may not be able to show due diligence if challenged.
The traditional PDC course runs over 72 hours. When you study permaculture online with us you choose how to schedule these hours, e.g. over 3 weeks or 3 months or more. Our students choose their hours, homework tasks and set their timetable. We offer very flexible interaction to bring out the uniqueness of student real-life situations and build wealth of shared of knowledge in Permaculture. Some students are isolated (hospitalised or on a remote property) some are living in a busy city. Each student is different and we aim to cater for this diversity to make permaculture assessable to a wide range of people.
What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is a way of designing your life so that very little of your effort is wasted. You design your lifestyle to be healthier, cleaner, social, meaningful and productive. It is the design that makes Permaculture different way to sustain humanity. By using permaculture design we can make more efficient societies, workplaces and preserve the beautiful natural resources we have left.
How will a Permaculture design course (PDC) help me ?
If your planning to run a business related to permaculture a PDC can help you be more professional. In general, a Permaculture design course will help you design a better lifestyle for yourself and family.
One of our fundamental principles is to start small and build on this success. By living a better lifestyle we can then implement the basic permaculture principles, ethics and understanding of natural systems in bigger and more complex projects.
What Topics Are Covered In A Permaculture Design Course?
Our framework follows the original guidelines set by the Permaculture Australia way back when we started in 1993. It was assessed and approved by Bill Mollison as it teaches the curriculum set by him and additional material following teaching of permaculture educators such as David Holmgren and technological developments of recent times. Our course notes are updated regularly.
Our permaculture course is different from a TAFE qualification as it is closer to the original concepts and framework for develped for permaculture training.
There are 20 topics in our Permaculture Design Course.
Module 1 – Introduction To Permaculture
- Quick Intro to Permaculture
- Permaculture Ethics
- Recycling and Environmental Waste Disposal
- Natural Systems as models for Design
- Cultivated Ecology (Zoning, Plants and animals of different scales)
Module 2 – Practicalities of Design
- Soils
- Water
- Forests and Trees
- Aquaculture and Mariculture
- Wildlife Management and Biological Pest Control
- Buildings and Structures
Module 3 – Applied Permaculture Design
- Permaculture Village Design and Development
- Patterns in Design
- Design for Catastrophe
- Appropriate Energy Conserving Technology
- Supplies – Ethical and environmental sourcing
- Recycling (Community and Industrial)
- Classical Landscape Profiles
- Community
- How Permaculture Trainees Operate
- Final Design – how to make you design.
When do our permaculture courses start?
Because our tuition is one-to-one you can start on any day and pace the learning to meet your needs. You have up to 2 years to complete the course. This can and has been extended for people with special needs. Some participants have completed the course in as little as 2 weeks, most take 3 months part time.
Our Permaculture Graduate Standard:
We have very high standard of graduates and are proud of them. Many graduates are active practicing permaculture in their lives, writing, manufacturing, or teaching and implementing new projects in permaculture. Because of our commitment to Student focused learning the student responses were and are put back into the course as this is a unique and successful feature of our teaching. This has served to reduce isolation, enhance interaction and build a support network. Students are encouraged to form groups with our other students and contacts in their area or on the internet. We now have students in more than 50 countries. See Our Student Profile.
How our Permaculture Trainees pathway can help you grow
Only Graduates of a permaculture design course are entitled to operate a small business using the word ‘Permaculture’. Graduates of our permaculture courses can teach the design course to others and are encouraged to be active in their community either: passively by sharing their better lifestyle practice; or actively teaching and encouraging others. Graduates of a permaculture design course are designated by the Permaculture Institute as “trainee permaculture designers” and must complete at least 2 years work in any permaculture field (as designated below) in order to graduate to your Diploma. You can qualify for your Diploma in any one of 11 different fields. Diplomas are issued by the continental Permaculture Institute (see references). Higher degrees may be obtained at various universities. All design course graduates should maintain a subscription to their Permaculture Association to keep abreast of news and changes. Report-writing and client needs, Learn how to write and design permaculture systems professionally for your clients. Also, how to avoid common errors in Design for clients, Creating work
Student’s contribution.
Student work examples are included in all topics. Students are encouraged to indicate future work and ideas, volunteer for responsibilities, etc. (Student privacy is respected by the institute).
Graduate’s assessment of the Course.
Students are encouraged to give a broad assessment of the course and their tutor.
Enrollment Information.