top of page
Sphere on Spiral Stairs

Permaculture Design Certificate Course

Greenway Campus, former College of Fine Arts

Montpelier, Vermont

August 10-21, 2026

For more information call: 303-247-1800

​​

Collaborative Organizations:

 

Summary:

This course presents the core permaculture design curriculum, with an emphasis on watershed-scale bioregional design. Students will learn the principles and methods of Permaculture design, and how they can be applied at various scales including backyard gardens, school curriculum, farm design and urban watershed-scale planning. This immersive program will show students an active high school farming project, an emerging program that links University of Vermont graduate students directly with communities to tackle watershed-scale challenges and emerging collaborative efforts to increase resiliency and reduce flooding in central Vermont. 

​​

​Organizing Partners

Our team is a collaboration of award-winning educators, community organizers and media producers. The Ecological Planning Laboratory, a partnership between the University of Vermont Extension and the Field Naturalist graduate program, helps communities tackle vital projects with an emphasis on social-ecological health at the watershed scale. The Center for Sustainable Systems, based at Montpelier High School, is an organization dedicated to bringing relevance and rigor to high school education in Central Vermont. Bright Blue Ecomedia is an Emmy award winning non-profit telling stories of transitional stories that enhance, enrich and sustain the ecological systems upon which humanity relies.

 

Educational Team

Lead instructor Andrew Faust is the Founder and Director of the Center for Bioregional Living in Ellenville, NY. He has been teaching Permaculture for several decades including courses in Ellenville and NYC for the past 20 years. Andrew released his first book Earth Is Our Home: a Bioregional Permaculture Design Book in 2024 and co-founded the Permaculture Land Trust in 2022.

​​

Walter Poleman is the Director of the Field Naturalist Program and Senior Lecturer at the University of Vermont. He specializes in natural history, place-based landscape analysis, and education for sustainability. He teaches courses in natural history and human ecology, landscape inventory and assessment, and conservation science. 

​

Hans Estrin is the Produce Safety Accreditation Program Coordinator at the University of Vermont's Ag Extension. He has over three decades of teaching experience, and over a decade of collaborative development work with diversified produce growers in Vermont and New England. He and Walter Poleman founded the Ecological Planning Laboratory.

​​

Tom Sabo is an award-winning high school teacher, leading sustainability educator, prominent local food activist, and the founding executive director of the Center for Sustainable Systems.  He is a chief architect of a model of service learning that integrates curriculum through a school greenhouse and gardens that provide food for the school system’s lunch program, using soil derived from the cafeteria food scraps.

​

Victor Guadagno is a three-time emmy award winning filmmaker and media producer. He is the founder and Managing Director of Bright Blue Ecomedia and the Producer of the Bordertown Podcast. 

 

Location

We will be hosted at the Greenway Institute, an innovative college located at the former college of Fine Arts in Vermont’s capitol city of Montpelier. Lodging and meals will be on campus and much of the experience will happen at various sites throughout the Upper Winooski river watershed. 

 

The Permaculture Design Course

Permaculture is a system of design, developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the early 1970’s that considers the physics and biology of the living earth as the guidelines for appropriate design. When it was conceived there was no word in the English dictionary for PERMAnent AgriCULTURE, it’s initial emphasis has been on diversified, perennialized agricultural systems. As it’s application begin to include social and economic systems, the term has evolved to represent PERMAnent CULTURE. The 72-hour Permacutlure Design Course has been established as an effective way to provide a life-changing experience, promising students a change of perspective and practical ways to begin engaging in the solution. Upon completion, students will be awarded the Permaculture Design Certificate.

 

Course Format

This is a two-week residential intensive with an emphasis on design and practical application. The course consists of lectures, skill-building workshops & demonstrations, guest speakers, field trips and design exercises.  Field trips and guest lectures will all be framed in the emerging systems design of the central Vermont region. Students will participate in a group design as well as a personal design project. If students wish to focus on their own site design we encourage they bring as much site detail as possible (property maps or surveys: showing as service lines - gas, water, electric, phone, etc.; aerial photos, soil maps, photographs and some initial thoughts on your goals, challenges and opportunities).

 

Personal Project

We will have design opportunities that fit within the central Vermont system, but we also encourage students to come with their own project design. If students wish to focus on their own site design we encourage they bring as much site detail as possible (property maps or surveys: showing as service lines - gas, water, electric, phone, etc.; aerial photos, soil maps, photographs and some initial thoughts on your goals, challenges and opportunities).

 

Course Fee is $2,000.
 

How to Register
We require a $300 deposit before June 5th to hold your space in the course.
Please make checks payable to Bright Blue, Inc. and send to:
Vic Guadagno
24 Marvin St.
Montpelier, VT 05602
 

Student Cancellations
All funds (less deposit) will be refunded if student cancels their enrollment six

weeks prior to the start date of the course (May 29th). After this date
no refunds will be given.

Course Cancellation
We reserve the right to cancel the course based on low enrollment or other
circumstances. If we are required to cancel the course we will fully refund
all student payments.

 

Course Highlights
 

PERMACUTLURE CORE CURRICULUM

  • Principles of Natural Systems

  • Pattern Understanding

  • Trees and Their Energy Transactions

  • Soils / Compost

  • Water Cycles and Management

  • Classical Landscape Profiles

  • Wildlife Management and Biological Pest Management

  • Wild Plant ID, harvest, edible & medicinal

  • Earth Resources / Ecosystem Services

  • Forests / Agroecology / Perennial Plants

  • Climate Factors and Adaptation

  • Methods of Design

  • Humid Tropics / Dryland Strategies / Humid Cool to Cold Climates

  • Appropriate Energy Conserving Technology


REGENERATIVE FARM DESIGN

  • Keyline Design & Agroforestry

  • Grazing & soil building

  • Multi-species intentional rotational grazing

  • Infrastructure / Natural Building

  • Greenhouses

  • Aquaculture

  • Waste Disposal and Recycling

  • Ecological "Waste" Water Systems

  • Site Design, Homestead & Skills

  • Master Planning (Biology, Energy and Infrastructure)


FOODSHED DESIGN / ECONOMICS

  • Regional Agricultural Economy

  • Local Wealth/Worker Coop's

  • Regional Currencies / Ecological Economics

  • Public land plan policy, Investment models and Land Trust


CULTURAL NARRATIVE AND EDUCATION

  • Storytelling & Relationship Building

  • Educational Networks

  • “EcoMedia”

 

Lead Instructor:

 

Support:

 

Guest Speakers (tentative):​

 

Field Trips (tentative)​

​

Recommended Texts:

 

​

​

Follow

  • facebook
  • instagram

©2019 by Bordertown. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page