Category Archives: News
For the past many years, with many hands and hearts involved, we have been gathering notes and class outlines/schedules, developing a permaculture design course aimed at children and youth. This is a full permaculture design course (PDC), developing design and art skills, creating projects, playing games, involving puppet theater and music—and is totally imbued with learning from nature, creative empowerment & FUN.
Want to find out more about a Permaculture Design Course for Children and Youth, or a Permaculture Teacher Training, and how we might bring it to your school or organization in 2018?
We have over twenty-five years of experience sharing art, environmental, garden-farming and permaculture design education with hundreds of children, from ages five and older. Many of them have joined us as apprentices, and teacher assistants, or returned after college or schooling elsewhere to join our Little Artshram teaching teams. Some have been inspired to create their own programs and workshops, spreading this work even further and further.
Since 1993, Penny Krebiehl. Little Artshram’s directress has offered permaculture inspired activities, classes and workshops, along with art and design education to youth of all ages, and adults through the following organizations: ARTSPACE, Little Artshram, and O’k CSA. Penny has taught everything from general introductory courses (Drawing, Cartooning, Painting, Summer Beehive Camps, Permaculture for Kids) to specific subjects (e.g. Urban Permaculture, Worm Composting, Seed Saving, Annual and Perennial Food Gardening, Medicinal and Herb Gardening, Drawing, Cartooning, Puppet and Mask Theater) to adult level 72-hour Permaculture Design Courses and Permaculture Teacher Trainings.
In 2003, Little Artshram began a permaculture program for children and youth, blending lessons in our “wild and tame” outdoor classroom gardens which has been based in the TC and Grand Traverse region ever since. With the official development of a permaculture curriculum, that shines a light on developing art and design skills, as well as, regenerative education that includes: Introducing Permaculture, Living Nature, Design, Growing Food, Built Environment and Resource Use, and Cultural Emergence (Social).
After a 3 year program hiatus, while developing a neighborhood/community garden-farm business, we are pleased to re-introduce a Permaculture Design Course for Children and Youth, with a deeper level of organizational structure, meeting national standards for public schools, and with a commitment to reach even more kids and their families with our “permaculture toolkit”.
Interested in taking a Permaculture Teacher Training, specifically focused on sharing permaculture with children, youth and families? A 3-day Summer training program will take place prior to the PDC for Children and Youth. Dates tba.
To find out more about the Teacher Training and/or Permaculture Design Course for Children and Youth, contact:
Little Artshram’s directress, Penny Krebiehl: 231-922-2014 penny.ok.art@gmail.com
We are one of dozens of organizations that have been involved with and sharing permaculture design and education with people of ALL ages, from all backgrounds, in different parts of the Great Lakes bioregion for many years.
Now, Little Artshram is very excited to announce that the Permaculture Women’s Guild’s new online Permaculture Design Certification Course is now launched! And, Little Artshram is a part of this global educational sharing community!
We feel honored to have Penny Krebiehl, our Founder and Directress to be a part of an international team of more than 40 women from 13 countries who put together this online course. This permaculture design course not only provides the standard 72-hour permaculture design curriculum, but also an additional 42 hours of study and hands-on practice in cultural emergence, social justice & decolonization, seed stewardship, egalitarian group process, working with volunteers, regenerative entrepreneurship, art of hosting, designing for children (which Penny leads), and permaculture pedagogy.
This is the first of it’s kind!
Sliding scale available, and early bird rates for those enroll within the first 100 people! Course includes certification, curriculum, and 3 hours of personal mentorship with Penny or another stellar teacher! 😊
Here’s the link to sign-up or please feel free to share!
The above collage of our International teaching team was made by one of our teachers, Kareen Erbe, who is doing the Appropriate Technology Module and also happens to be a total superstar permaculturist. Check out her website www.brokengroundpermaculture.com
How can permaculture design help urban, suburban, and small-town dwellers meet our needs in sustainable, resilient ways? Toby Hemenway’s book The Permaculture City is one of the course books that expands beyond the “garden-gate” to offer solutions for energy, community, place-making, livelihood, decision-making, and many of the other challenges of living in cities and towns. Toby Hemeway offers innovative examples of urban permaculture from all around North America, and his book, focusing on an urban environment offers inspiration and hope for moving toward a regenerative culture.
This is the first year the course, organized by Little Artshram and Northern Michigan Permaculture is to be housed at the Greenspire School and the GT Food Innovation Hub at Cherry Capital, in Traverse City, Michigan–each hosting three weekends. We’ve been able to offer the course to representative students from each of our host location sites and Little Artshram has also been very, very supportive of making the course available to students through payment plans and work-trade.
In addition, Little Artshram would like to build a scholarship fund for students to be able to take the course. If you can make a (tax-deductible) contribution to that fund (however small), and it would be used well. You can use our donation link through Paypal here or send a check to Little Artshram/Northern Michigan Permaculture. Either way, please note “PDC scholarship” with your contribution.
There are still a few seats in our upcoming city-based design course in Northern Michigan, and we hope to include all who are interested. Register by March 1st, at a reduced fee of $950 for the Traverse City Permaculture Design Course.
SPECIAL OFFER: Former PDC students, may take the course for one-half price!
To ask additional questions or set up a payment plan for the course fee, contact the course registrar: penny.ok.art@gmail.com On-line registration here: www.nmipermaculture.org
And here in a youtube video is one of the best in depth explanations of permaculture we have heard. It addresses the many challenges and tools for decision making we face today. Toby Hemenway new book “The Permaculture City” covers these, and is one of our main course books for this 6 month PDC.
On-line registration or to download a pdf: www.nmipermaculture.org
Contact: penny.ok.art@gmail.com
Imagine being able to live in a sustainable way in all areas of life, achieving energy efficiency, water and food security, and rehabilitating landscape into productive land. These ideas are all part of the matrix of Permaculture Design, a method of planning that can be applied at many scales; from the home garden to city block, to village to farm.