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​Permaculture Design Certificate

3 weekend Summer Intensive

Antioch College welcomes the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute (CPI) to lead and award the CPI’s internationally recognized Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) training to be held over three weekends from July 14-30.

Permaculture is Ecological Design: a system of ethics, principles, tools and skills that integrates the patterns and systems of nature as guides for creating resilient and holistic landscapes, homes, communities, and habitats.

This accelerated training is structured as follows:

  • Dates: Full 72 hour training – July 14 – 16, 21 – 23, 28 – 30, 2023
  • Fridays: 4 hr online lecture/discussion sessions (4:00PM – 8:00PM)
  • Saturdays & Sundays: 8 hr on site lecture/discussions/interactivity on farm work/learn (10:00AM – 6:00PM)
  • Plus 12 hours of supplemental reading and videos.

The training covers the following and much more:

  • History, Ethics, Principles of Permaculture
  • Methods of Permaculture Design and Implementation
  • Working as a team on a design project on site at Antioch Farm
  • Pattern Understanding: Interpretation and Application
  • Climate and Microclimate
  • Water: Harvesting, Conservation, and Earthworks
  • Trees and their Energy Transactions
  • Soils: Classification, Food Web, and Restoration
  • Plant selection, Integrated pest mgmt, annual/perennial food gardens
  • Integrating animals
  • Renewable Energy. Using Biological Resources. Natural Building. Appropriate Technology
  • Food Preservation, Fermentation, Nutrition, Food as Medicine
  • Invisible Structures: Personal, Social, Governance and Economic Permaculture. Intentional communities, Local Resiliency

The training will be led by Susan VonderHaar, Director of the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute. Susan has taught Permaculture and Life Sciences since 2011 for CPI and Cincinnati area colleges. Her Masters of Science degree and work experience of 25 years as a Project Scientist at the US EPA, combined with permaculture education and experience, will be greatly enhanced with contributions and practical experiences from Antioch College Organic Farmer Bruce Linebaugh, other faculty, and guest speakers from CPI.

We welcome members of the public as well as enrolled Antioch students. This training is accessible to beginners as well as experienced home gardeners, farmers, homesteaders, artisans, nature enthusiasts, and more. Learn about the role humans play in the ecosystems we inhabit and how to make choices to affect those ecosystems for the better – protecting, preserving, and healing the earth even as we harvest from it.

 

For more information please contact Eric Miller at emiller@antiochcollege.edu

Susan VonderHaar heavily under the influence of the first Earth Day has studied and taught Life Sciences for more than 40 years. With degrees in Biology (BS) and Environmental Science (MS), she worked for 25 years as a Project Scientist at the U.S. EPA doing research with biological monitoring and treatability studies. She has taught Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences in area colleges for 10 years. She was introduced to Permaculture in 1999, completed the PDC in 2011, and her teacher certification in 2014. She has taught PDC course sessions since 2012.
Bruce Linebaugh grew up on a mid-size dairy farm just a few miles southwest of Antioch College, and Yellow Springs, OH. He received a State Farmers Degree in the Future Farmers of America.

Bruce started his farming career at the age of 15, raising livestock and row crops until 1984. He spent the next 30 years working at Elano Corporate in various roles building aircraft parts for GE aircraft division and farming on the side. He left GE in the fall of 2013, after 30 years, and started market garden farming and taking small farm training courses at Wilmington College and Ohio State.

Bruce completed a summer internship on the Antioch Farm in 2019 under former Farmer Manager Kat Christen and co-taught a beginning farmers class that year. In the spring of 2020, Bruce was asked to come back to the Antioch Farm to help run it for long term storage crops. In March 2021, Bruce was asked to take on the role of Antioch College Farm Manager.

Registration

Registration for the 2023 July-August PDC! The fee is $950 if paid by or before May 31, 2023, and $1,000 starting on June 1, 2023.