What’s inside: Permaculture and kids fit together. We’ll look at why and how and what to teach your kids about relating to their world.
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Permaculture & Sustainability for Kids
Let’s face it – kids are the future so we want them to take an interest in this planet. And they are naturally curious about their world. Let’s look at how today’s permaculture relates to our kids.
First a few definitions
To get us all on the same page, we need a few definitions.
Permaculture
I like the definition of “permaculture” from Milkwood’s site:
Permaculture is, in many ways, simply a goal: of living in functional, meaningful relation to our ecosystems, with reciprocity at the core of that relationship; a goal of living in a connected, meaningful way that benefits land, waters, life and community, as well as meeting our own needs for a fulfilling life.
—Kirsten Bradley, Milkwood
Comment: I feel that the ideas behind permaculture match beautifully with Charlotte Mason’s ideas about children and nature.
Education is the science of relations.
— Principle 12, Charlotte Mason
In homeschooling, we are helping the child build relationships with not only knowledge and ideas but with the natural world and people.
So today’s “modern” subject of permaculture can fit directly into the child’s sphere of learning.
Regenerative Agriculture
At its core, regenerative agriculture is the process of restoring degraded soils using management practices (e.g., adaptive grazing, no-till planting, no or limited use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizer, etc.) based on ecological principles.
Regenerative ag is a very recent term but seems to be a way of trying to fix the problems that commercial agriculture, with monocropping and pesticides, has caused. The term is wildly in fashion at the moment and many of the bigger farmers are jumping on the bandwagon. Similar to when “organic” became fashionable and profitable. The tricky part right in that above definition is “no or limited” use of pesticides. “Or limited” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.
But if you go with the actual definition of what the intent is, many small farmers are making groundbreaking advances (without tilling the soil, of course!) And in reality, permaculture people have been doing this — it’s just got another name now.
Sustainability
Some of these modern definitions I’m not keen on because of the direction that people have taken with the ideas. But hold that thought while we look at the origin of this term.
“Sustainability” was coined from the German word in 1713, Nachhaltigkeit, which was applied to forestry concepts – making sure there were trees for the future as you used them.
The term has since come to mean many different things, many of which are economic, but many today go much further to promote social ideas.
But we aren’t going to use this term because in general, sustainability is referring to trying control large factors socially or politically, where permaculture as a term refers to something you can do to change and make a better world.
A good book on specific examples is Building a Better World in Your Backyard: Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys by Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen Koop.
In fact, I’d like to look at some of the fun challenges that Paul Wheaton has on his forum for the rest of this post.
Incidentally, Paul is also known as the Duke of Permaculture. He has lots of fun things that he sells like Decks of Permaculture Cards, which are actual card decks with Permaculture notes on them, and the Garden Master Course, which is like a master gardener course, but teaches you how to make ecosystems that eliminate the need for pesticides.
Historical Note
In times past, many societies and cultures practiced the ideas of permaculture, regenerative agriculture, and even “sustainability”. Many agricultural cultures used crop rotation, soil improvements, sustainable water management… They just didn’t use the same terms we use today and they didn’t have modern pesticides. Today, the advancements in science and technology have advanced permaculture and regenerative ag.
So why the big deal about permaculture and regenerative ag?
Well, when the industrial revolution came around, population shifted to the cities and agriculture shifted to our modern industrial system with monocropping, man-made fertilizers, and synthetic poisonous pesticides. Goodbye horse manure and hello glyphosate.
These practices depleted soils at exponential rates. So today’s focus on fixing the soils and implementing systems that work together – using nature to help fix the problems – stems from the problems caused by not using natural systems.
But the good news is, it can be fixed.
Important!
You do need to emphasize to your kids that it can be fixed. The next generation needs hope backed with simple ideas to make it better.
This world was created in such an amazing way that things can regenerate. Think of a devastating forest fire – have you ever seen those areas several years later? The new growth that happens goes through very specific cycles.
Is this a topic to teach?
So permaculture touches on nature study because you observe systems and cycles of nature. It also touches on handicraft ideas – gaining life skills, knowing how to make things by hand increases your own sustainability. That’s part of the idea about saving the world from your own back yard.
Can I learn Permaculture Ideas?
Yes, you and your kids can learn permaculture ideas little by little at your own pace. Paul Wheaton has a learning forum which has a “Badge” challenge with very specific learning & doing tasks in over a dozen topical areas. Some are simple, some are ridiculously hard. But you work your way through as you learn by completing tiny pieces of the badge – they call these “Badge Bits” or BBs.
Here’s how he describes it:
PEP is a free activity-based curriculum to learn homesteading and permaculture skills. It is based on the things Paul thinks are the most crucial and important skills for someone to know for growing in his climate.
How to do this
- Find out more about the program.
- Read Overview – All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and More
- Decide if you like it and if it will work for your family.
- Sign up for an account at Permies.com
- If you are doing these as a family, you only need one account – you are signing up for a newsletter and to be able to post to the forum.
- If you try to keep track online for individual children (maybe for older kids who manage their own computing), then each child needs an account.
- Get your first BB by selecting a SUPER easy one.
- Select a topic to concentrate on and work on a sand badge towards it.
They estimate 5 hours to complete a sand badge. I haven’t completed one yet – we opted to just working on ones that we were interested in randomly at first. But now I am trying to get my first sand badge in natural medicine.
Cons of this system
While I think this is a very fun way to learn things you never thought about, it has a few drawbacks.
- I can’t tell how long it actually takes to complete a badge. Especially with the natural medicine badge because it involves harvesting and then some step that takes weeks or more!
- The documentation part of “achieving” the badge can be a bit time consuming. It’s not really – it is just snap a picture and submit. But I get all caught up in making lengthy descriptions. So this is probably my problem. OR I forget to take a critical picture and have to wait another year for a new harvest!
- It is a system designed for adults. The forum is an older model and some of you tech-savvy youngsters may not be in tune with the format.
- There are a lot of choices of what you can do. It could be overwhelming.
Pros of trying this
- It has quality information and pinpoints how to learn it.
- There are a wealth of experts available, ready to help you learn.
- There is already an abundance of information on so many topics.
- It’s free.
Who is this for?
Good for over-achievers, independent learners, competitive people who like recognition of accomplishment, kinesthetic learners, list-driven sequential learners.
Note: for the last category of people – especially if children, they will probably need direction as to where to go because the PEP lists are overwhelmingly long. In other words, the options of what you can do can be overwhelming for people who don’t know where to start.
Good thing
So it is good that I am chronicling some of these – I’m pointing you to specific sequences to get a few badge bits under way. By the time you do a few, you will become familiar with the system and you’ll see other opportunities that will enhance your learning.
A Note on PEP Food Prep & Preservation
I want you to know that getting a sand badge in this category is hard, primarily because the requirement calls for a rocket stove & solar oven. So you can get a bunch of badge bits, but until you have the more serious permaculture items to cook on, you might only get a partial badge. Which is fine too. Some of the straw badge (the next level up) are easy enough to do too, but you still need those particular tools.
Also, there are strict restrictions against using plastic, teflon pans, & utensils aluminum pans, and microwaves. These are restricted because of the damage they can do to people. (Do your own research!)
I actually have a rocket camping stove which is awesome, so I might be able to do some of this. But I’ll have to get moving on making a solar oven!
A Note on Gardening
The first basic item on the Gardening Badge is to build a hugelkutur bed 7 feet tall and 6 feet long. I live in Suburbia and that just isn’t realistic for my backyard.
Many of the PEP badges are for someone with acreage.
If it’s too hard
- First solution is to just get the badge bits (BBs) of any badge that has tools you are not ready for or for any badge that requires land that you don’t have.
- A second solution is to try the PEMs (Permaculture Mike) instead of PEPs (Permaculture Paul). Mike comes at it from a renter’s point of view: What can you do in permaculture if you don’t have land or if you live in an apartment
Summary
That’s what I like about Paul Wheaton’s approach. He’s trying to make solutions for anyone to improve the world.
Your kids will have the future world, so you may as well build their relationship with the natural world!
