Detroit Training for Teachers & Staff of
Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy – July 2010
Permaculture Design Certificate Course

Pictures and Narrative by Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture

I met Blair Evans, Executive Director at the BKB Academy, while we were in Detroit delivering our 4-day Suburban/Urban intensive back in April, 2010.  He is inspired by the permaculture model and sees it as a foundational approach to living, and as such, organization and teaching too.

As such, he decided to expose 2-dozen of his teachers and staff to the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course so that they might develop a modified approach to educating young people at risk.  He wants to heal kids from in inside out, not the outside in.  Permaculture is about observing what is at the root cause of all things and working with the foundational intelligence at the core to heal what needs healing and to grow vibrant and self-sustaining life systems.

We believe this may be a first, where an entire school system is overlaying permaculture as its foundational basis of operation.


First Graduates of the Permaculture Design Certificate Course
in front of a freshly dug swale.
(A big rain was expected to hit that evening so the freshly dug swale was protected with burlap.  It will be covered with a thin layer of woodchips.  The soil is very sandy and needs the short term protection, and long term organic matter, that woodchips supply.)

 

 


Most of the young people in this charter school have fallen through the cracks in the public school system and need a different kind of learning environment.  Hence, Mr. Evan’s inspiration to have permaculture become the foundational piece for his schools whether it be for scholastic studies, developing trade skills, or dealing with life challenges as they present themselves to young people in a city that has had its share of economic, social and environmental challenges.

 

As part of their training, these teachers and staff were exposed to a couple of successful community garden projects. One of our graduate students from a 2008 PDC Course is involved in such a project in the Detroit area where a community garden, attached to a woman’s shelter, brings food, respite and new skills to mothers and their children.

 

Jared Bogdanov/Hanna (white t-shirt) is explaining his plans to re-design this edge zone around the perimeter of the property.  More bio-mass is generated here than in the garden plot so he wants to modify this area to grow more food for human consumption by incorporating apples, cherries, grapes, squash, potatoes, asparagus and rhubarb in proximity of an established walnut tree.

 

His sister, Alexis (kneeling) is a driving force in this garden and generously shared some of the bounty from the garden with our permaculture students.

 

With several campus’ in the school system, we visited a couple of them to allow the permaculture course students to brainstorm different design ideas for varying properties.  The designs will be different for each school, the principles applied, however, will be the same.

 
 

Another stop was at the D-Town garden project of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.  With thousands of vacant lots in the city, there is no reason that residents can’t better feed themselves while also learning to build secure businesses in food production.

The economic potential of growing and selling food locally is staggering when one considers that Detroit imports over 95% of the food that it eats.  Millions of dollars are pulled out of the city when residents purchase food from major food chains. Why not spend those dollars within the community.
(PIctured: Wayne Weiseman, our PDC teaching partner, with camera.)

 

In permaculture fashion, these logs propped up in the shade have been inoculated with mushroom spores and will soon start producing a crop that requires little care except harvesting, washing and taking to market.

 

Design course student learns how to use transits and other tools such as the A-frame to determine slope and level for the location of water harvesting earth works such as ponds, swales and berms.

 

Learning to use surveying tools.

 

This swale, a water harvesting ditch on contour, will go to work every time there is enough rain to move over the surface of the land.  The water captured would be lost to the surrounding creek if not caught here where it can then soak into the ground and water deep root perennial plants such as dwarf fruit trees, blueberries and hazelnut bushes planted in its proximity.

 

Once our permaculture students had been exposed to most of the permaculture concepts and principles, it was time for them to put their newly acquired education to work.  Every permaculture course includes working on actual permaculture designs for specific projects and sites.

 

Students typically break up into teams and tackle either small projects or take on part of a larger one.

 

These students made up a lively team that worked on creating a design for a newly cleared area in front of a local wellness center. Their design was very comprehensive and well done.

 

As the training came to a close, each design team had to share the results of their work with the rest of the class.

 

Here is an example of the complexity of detail that can go into a design.  Each item represents an aspect of the design that works in cooperation with other items near to it.

Permaculture is really about relationship – finding the functional relationships between various elements in a given area – one element supporting another just by being itself.

Just as it is in nature.

This was a wonderful training for Wayne and me and we look forward to returning to BKB to see how permaculture anchors itself into the workings of the school.

Our best wishes go to all of these wonderful teachers, social workers and administrators whom we now consider friends and fellow permaculturists.

Bill Wilson – August 2010