Permaculture Perspective - Sustainable Outdoor Education Classroom Projects

Permaculture is a design system conceived by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren for creating sustainable human environments.

Practical Permaculture projects help to contribute to the enhancement of the environment, hence promoting a sustainable planet.

We have the ability to empower ourselves to reduce our daily impact on the environment and facilitate real change in the real world simply by modifying our own behaviour and Permaculturists/Permaculturalists believe that education has proven time and time again to be the first vital step in ensuring that we continue to protect our environment and by reaching out to the children during their school years they will hopefully pass on their new found knowledge onto their immediate family and so the pathway to change begins.

By encouraging sustainability in the education system the children (and indirectly their parents) are taught that although they may be just one little person sharing a big planet with lots of other people, if they do their “little-bit” then others around them will do likewise.

Permaculture Designers and Educators have been important pioneers in the setting up of food gardens in schools.

We like to call these EcoEducation gardens "Outdoor Classrooms".

As developing school outdoor classrooms became more popular it was clearly evident that the respective government was looking to raise the awareness level of ecological and environmental education and what better way to showcase this method of learning than by installing and making use of a school food production garden.

Sustainability is addressed in many ways such as utilizing organic growing methods, using chemical-free treatments, learning how to make and use compost, learning how to farm worms and use their “worm wee”, learning how to keep chickens and what to do with their by-products and also the importance of “seed-saving” from one harvest to the next.

Permaculture designed gardens (growing areas) are known to use a diverse range of plant and in particular use multi-use plants.

Raised no-dig garden beds are commonly used in children learning areas as they enable plants to grow in deep layers of organic matter without disturbing the sub-soil, requires less physical effort to create and maintain and most importantly are usually at the child's height and/or eye-level which makes it easy to interact with the growing plants.

Sustainable Projects include the construction of raised vegetable garden bed/s, building a worm-farm, building composting bays, building a chicken house and chicken pen/enclosure, installing water-saving devices (to collect evaporative air-conditioning run-off water, etc), installing greywater reuse systems as well as installing rainwater tanks to collect roof run-off water.

As with all permaculture designed projects whether they be a school garden or a backyard food growing garden the overall aim is to "Emulate Nature" and reap the rewards that nature offers in return.

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