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Final Call for Signup!

On-Site PDC in, Stelle, IL Jun. 17-24, 2023

Final Call for Signup!

On-Site PDC in in Stelle, IL Jun.17-24, 2023

Our Internationally Recognized
Midwest Permaculture PDC Course

On-Demand PDC
You Can Begin Right Now!

Experience a full PDC course, at your own pace, on your own schedule.

Bill Wilson – Lead Designer/Trainer at Midwest Permaculture

Why This New Training Option?

A word from Bill…

Students and other teachers tell us we have created one of the most enlightening, enjoyable and powerful Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Courses anywhere. We hope this is true as we have always been focused on continually improving our trainings with each successive course. And we will be delivering our 100th this year.

So, to make this course more readily available to others, we have taken the recordings of one of our recent, online, PDC courses (#93) and enhanced it to be a deeply informative experience.

You will be like a fly on the wall of an actual PDC course yet still have access to us, the teaching team. 

A Look Into The Course

Below is exactly how the course is laid out. All of the links, videos, and resources become available to see once a student registers.
Session #1 is available for you to watch right now to get a feel for the training.

Quick Links

Step 1: Watch Now
The Intro – Session #1

The Permaculture Course begins with this 3-hour video which lays out the brilliance of the approach to living well, while caring for all of life as well.

Step 2:
The Foundations

25% of our PDC Course lies within our classic Foundations of Permaculture (FOP) webinar series, including the four cherished interviews that we have shared with our students for over a decade.

Step 3:
The ‘Main Course’

75% of our PDC Course resides here with zoom Sessions #2-#18 of a live, online, PDC course, just as we delivered it. You will get to know the live students and enjoy listening in to this authentic learning experience.

Course Chat Room

There is a chat room feature in the Home Room of this course for students to introduce themselves, offer comments or ask questions about the training. 
There are also additional chat features at the conclusion of each video so students can ask specific questions about that specific video of the course. 

Office Hours

We know how important it is to have access to the teachers.

First Monday each month: 9:00-10:30 a.m
Third Monday each month: 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Central Time Zone

& Design Charrettes

Open to the Public

Second Sunday of Every Other Month

2:00-4:30 p.m Central Time Zone

Course Workbook

This course workbook is here for your convenience. It is not a requirement to fill it out. Should you choose to use it, simply download it to your computer and type in your notes, or print and write. 

Earning the PDC Certificate

“My husband is laughing because I earned my Bachelors degree from Harvard, my Masters from Yale and my PhD. from Columbia, but the only certificate I have hanging in our home is from my PDC course with you. This course was amazing Bill.”

This is a High-Touch, Self-Study Course
We are Available to You in Four Ways

You are not alone during this self-study adventure. If you come up with questions, get stuck, or wish to discuss some aspect of the curriculum, or even some detail of your own project, we are here for you in 4-ways.

  1. Chat Forum:
    There is a live chat forum with this self-study course which we monitor. We aim to respond to inquiries within 24-hours or less. 
  2. Office Hours:
    Just like college professors, we will be keeping office hours twice a month for students of this On Demand PDC. All of our past PDC Graduates have access to Office Hours as well. With registration, new students receive our office hours zoom link and are invited to stop in anytime during this time-period. Bill will typically be there along with either Milton, Megan, Will or Becky. Office Hours are scheduled for the first Monday of each month from 9:00-10:30 am (Central) and the 3rd Monday from 5:00-6:30 pm. 
  3. Monthly Design Charrettes:
    We brainstorm a different design project every month. First, we make an assessment of the project and site (soil, climate, topography, watershed) and then make our first stabs at a permaculture design in real time. What are the obvious opportunities related to the project goals? This is typically on the 2nd Sunday of each month from 2:00-4:30 pm Central time. (More on the Charrettes)
  4. One-on-One Consultation Time:
    When you have done all you can on your own design, and still feel that you would like to get our input, we offer discounted pricing to our registered students and course graduates (PDC, PDMC & FOP).
Join Bill, and at Least One Other Team Member, During Office Hours, Twice a Month

And if you haven’t already found this other page, you might be wondering…

Want to Earn the Permaculture Design Certificate Too?

Earning the internationally recognized design course certificate is optional. If you just want the education with some guidance, the full course is available to you and at about half the price of the live courses. But if you’d like to use the word Permaculture in the promotion of your work (teaching/designing/installing), earning the PDC Certificate will be worth the added effort and modest cost.

In a nutshell, the long-standing tradition established by Bill Mollison, states that only those people who have earned the design course certificate can use the name ‘Permaculture’ to provide teaching or design services to others. 

This being said, there are no permaculture police out there, but if you are thinking of offering permaculture workshops or design services to others, Mollison requested that you have at least been exposed to the curriculum in its entirety.

This is a large body of work and if someone is going to represent themselves as a permaculturist, it only makes sense that they be familiar with all of it. And to clarify this a bit more, the certificate does not declare you as a ‘Certified Permaculture Teacher’ or a ‘Certified Permaculture Designer’ per se, but it does state to the world that you were exposed to the full curriculum. This is a certificate of completion — not competency. 

So, to earn your PDC Certificate with Midwest Permaculture through this new On-Demand option, students are required to take notes on every webinar and training session and submit them to us for a quick review. We will not be grading nor critiquing these notes. Our obligation is to verify that you viewed each segment of the course. The course has unique content. We will know if you listened to a session or not. 🙂

Learn Permaculture Design by Doing Permaculture Design

There are also 7-design exercises that students will undertake throughout the course either writing or sketching by hand or with the use of one’s computer or tablet (your choice). They are not difficult or rigorous but enlightening, and these will be submitted along with the notes. At a minimum, to earn your certificate you will need to be able to connect with us via email, Google Drive, or through our website. It’s simple communication stuff really. 

Pricing and Registration

Option 1: Full 72-hour PDC

You’ll receive our entire 72-hour course with all the nuance of being in the classroom with other students. Work at your own pace. Learn. Find clarity and inspiration.
(Return to this page after placing this in your cart if you wish to add earning your PDC Certificate, or a consultation, to your learning objectives.)

Option 2: Add PDC Certificate

Turn in your notes on all webinars, sessions and design exercises for review/verification and earn the Internationally Recognized PDC Certificate, by Midwest Permaculture, signed by Bill Wilson.
(Return to this page if you wish to add a private consultation to your design goals.)

Option 3: Add Consultation

Residential

Homestead

Small Farm

Would you like us to Review your Final Design Project, share our assessment, and make recommendations to you? You can add this now as you register, or later. There is no cost difference. Go through the course and order this consultation later if you are not sure. We offer all students of this On-Demand PDC Course a substantial discount for our design time.
(To all our PDC Graduates, this offer is to you as well. Simply click on one of the consultation options above and we will contact you after purchase to arrange a time.)

  • Residential Property up to 1-acre (1.5 hour Consultation):  List $495  –  Your Price $300
  • Homestead Property 1-10 acres (2 hours Consultation):  List $645  –  Your Price $400
  • Small Farm over 10-acres (2.5 hours Consultation): List $795  –  Your Price $500

Want to Know what this Course is Really Like?
Watch Session #1 Now.

Play Video

If you have not already found this introductory video on our website or elsewhere, here is the first session out of a 72-hour learning feast. We offer this session for free so you can become more familiar with what our PDC courses are like and how we teach them. 

The PDC course takes a practical and honest look at life, what it is, and what our part in it can be. And we do this with all of the honesty, humor, gratitude, and wonder we have. We believe this is why we have earned a 4.9 out of 5-star student rating. 

“This course absolutely grew on me. I started to look forward to every session and did not want it to end when I got there. I learned SO much. I am changed. I am humbled. I am hopeful again. Thank you Bill, and the rest of the MWP team!”
Nicholas J. – EMT (age 37)

And you certainly don't need to own property to take this course!

The PDC provides a fresh understanding of how each of us can significantly contribute to creating a more permanent and compassionate culture, regardless of whether or not we own land. The majority of students in our PDC course are suburban/urban dwellers seeking a greater understanding of how things really work in the natural world, how to create abundance & security possibly around the home they are living in, and how one could be of genuine service in the world to serve the greater good. As one of our students said (a retired US Marine Colonel) “I wish every high school student in the world could take this course!”

"There would have been no way I could have participated in a scheduled course, but by squeezing in the hours when I have the time, I am now well over half-way through the training. I feel like I'm getting to know the original students in the course as I now recognize their voices as they ask their questions and make comments. I LOVE this training and am LEARNING SO MUCH! Thank you Bill, Megan and Milton. I'm looking forward to joining you during your office hours or at one of the upcoming charrettes."
Bethany
Mom - Home Schooler - Garden and Yard Designer

Students Get to Review 6 Actual Final-Design Projects
Learn by Seeing Other's Collective Work

As we work our way toward the end of the course, we choose 6 of our student’s submitted properties to use for final design projects. Students without personal projects choose which property they would like to assist with. They are given 5-6 hours of class time to create a final design as a team.  They share their final design work with everyone in the class and we as instructors add our comments and make a few additional suggestions to their design if we feel it might be helpful. This goes beyond design theory or exercises; these are real people, with real properties and tangible goals, who have laid out their best design work after gaining the knowledge from the PDC course.

Prefer a Live PDC Experience?

See our Schedule for Live Online & In-Person Training Options