2010 MASLA Education Session:
Stay tuned as we are still in the planning stages. Look for more information in March and April 2010!
Information from last year's ed session (2009):
PERMACULTURE APPROACH INTO PRACTICE:
Designing Self Sufficient Sites, Neighborhoods and Cities
2009 MASLA Spring Education Session
Friday, April 24th, 2009
9am-4pm
Guthrie Theater
Dowling Studio and Pohlad Lobby
818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415
The day long education session provides the equivalent of 6 CEU's.
8:15 am – 8:45 am - Registration
9:00 am to 10:15 am
Mark Shepard, Ecological Designer
Why permaculture? What is permaculture?
What are the principles of permaculture?
10:15 am to 10:30 am - Break
10:30 am to 12:00 am
Bruce Blair, Manager, Facility Development and Natural Resources
Permaculture around the world – the Cuban perspective
Permaculture in our shared public spaces – Dakota County Parks
Noon to 1 pm - Lunch Break (Box Lunch Provided)
Mini Expo and Trade Show
1:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Bruce Blair, Manager, Facility Development and Natural Resources
Permaculture in our own backyards – Welch, Minnesota
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Mark Shepard, Ecological Designer
Case Studies of Successful permaculture designs – from ‘stealth’ permaculture to the Urban Wilderness
2:30 pm to 2:45 pm - Break
2:45 pm to 3:15 pm
Cam Gordon, Minneapolis Council Member-Ward 2
Working with our governing bodies to promote sustainable practices and initiatives
3:15 pm to 4 pm
Panel Discussion
4 pm to 5:00 pm
Mini Expo and Trade Show
Mark Shepard is a consultant, farmer, activist and instructor who uses permaculture as a central principle of his work. He was certified as a permaculture designer in 1993 and received a Diploma in permaculture Design directly from Bill Mollison the founder of the permaculture movement. Mark’s knowledge and skills have been implemented in his permaculture, agroforestry and ecological design business, Forest Agriculture Enterprises. He is also the owner and manager of New Forest Farms LLC in Viola, WI. Established in 1995, New Forest Farm is a conscious conversion of a typical row-crops farm into a perennial agricultural ecosystem, inspired by permacultural principles. He is the vice-president of the SW Badger Resource Conservation and Development Coun-cil and has served on the board of directors of the Association for Temperate Agro-forestry. Mark teaches upper Midwest permaculture design courses and has authored several technical documents on related topics. He is considered a regional expert on permaculture.
Bruce Blair is a landscape architect by training, a park manager by profession, and an ecological gardener at heart. His deep understanding of both permaculture and land-scape architecture provide him with a unique understanding of land management is-sues. While he works full time as the Manager of Facilities and Natural Resource Devel-opment at the Dakota County Parks Department, he and his family are also intensively implementing a permaculture based plan for their two-acre homestead in Welch, MN. Bruce’s understanding of permaculture was first developed at a training at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in 2003. Since then he has been an instructor for introductory and design certificate courses in permaculture locally. He teaches with the belief that permaculture methodology delivers comprehensive and practical solu-tions. He is a valued local expert and advocate of permaculture.
City Council member Cam Gordon is a life-long resident of Minneapolis. Over the past 25 years he has worked in the Minneapolis community as a small business owner, teacher, administrator, musician, journalist, author, and community organizer. His rich experi-ences have helped him learn a great deal about the policy decisions facing our City, the values needed to guide those policies, and the skills needed to manage its resources and help meet its challenges. He is currently working with the mayor’s office on a new initiative called Homegrown Minneapolis. Its purpose is to increase the amount of locally produced food being eaten and grown in our city by increasing the overall success of farmer’s markets in Minneapolis (especially in underserved communities); helping more people garden in community spaces, school properties, and their own backyards; increasing the use of locally-grown foods in Minneapolis restaurants and grocery stores; and fostering small business urban agriculture. As a founding member of the Green Party of Minnesota, Cam Gordon is a valued supporter of green initiatives in the community.
Permaculture
Want to reinvigorate your design thinking to go beyond traditional problem-solving approaches? Learn about Permaculture—it’s an old concept gaining new currency as we face increasing ecological, energy and economic challenges.
“Catch and Store Energy”
"Obtain a Yield”
“Produce No Waste”
These are some of the Design Principles of Permaculture, originally developed as an agro-ecological approach to landscape design. Permaculture embraces a core set of design principles that can be used to create self-sustaining systems. As we embark on a future of ecological consciousness and the creative age, how will designers and planners utilize principles of permaculture to create self sufficient developments?
This one-day educational session is organized around the premise that alternative ways of thinking and designing holistically will become increasingly important to our way of life and our approach to design. The education session will ask: What are the key principles of permaculture? How can we apply these principles into our design of place? How may we, as designers, policy makers, and citizens, create closed-systems for sustainable living and bring the permaculture approach into the forefront of designing self sufficient sites, neighborhoods, cities and regions?
The education session will bring together people such as design practitioners and theorists, planners, engineers, environmental scientists, politicians and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of permaculture, which will not only inspire us as designers, but also prepare us as leaders of the sustainable design movement.
Want to learn more about Permaculture before the Ed Session? Investigate the following links about permaculture:
http://southwoodsforestgardens.blogspot.com/2008/11/permaculture-list.html
http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/index/
www.midwestpermaculture.com/AboutPermaculture.php
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/perma.html
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2009 Ed Session Schedule