Why did we start the project?
We are a group of people who have seen for years that there is a great need to include children in permaculture and bring the basics of permaculture to people’s lives from an early age. We wish to find and offer old and new ways to engage children in permaculture ethics and principles.
We want to work with the nature of the child, which means using a child-centred pedagogy. Our project aims to work with a variety of European organizations to improve the education of children in informal, formal and non-formal learning through the development of curricula, lesson plans, film and other resources which will enable school & kindergarten teachers, leaders, parents and other educators to engage in a holistic, sustainable education with the children (age 3-6 and 7-12) they are working with.
Vision, Mission, Aims
Our vision for the future is that “Humans are living in harmony with each other and nature, and all children can access an education based upon the ethics of earth care, people care and fair share.”
Our project aims to work with a variety of European organisations to improve the education of children in informal, formal and non-formal learning through the development of curricula, lesson plans, film and other resources which will enable school & kindergarten teachers, leaders, parents and other educators to engage in a holistic, sustainable education with the children they are working with.
To reach this vision, our mission is:
“Creating and giving the tools to empower children, parents, educators and other people who work with children to integrate permaculture into education and their lives through:
– Creating a European Children Permaculture Network
– Organising local, national, and international events
– Compiling, creating and disseminating resources for teaching permaculture to children
– Providing and facilitating training and skill sharing to teach permaculture to children
– Engaging children in opportunities to learn from nature
What are the project Outputs?
We are committed to developing outputs which will be shared freely on this website.
A research paper with the objective of giving an overview of the existing resources about teaching permaculture to children will be written. This information will be given to all project partners, members of the network and educators worldwide who work with children in permaculture. The majority of the document will be in English, existing resources will remain in their original language.
We want to share case studies of real life examples on how teaching permaculture to children took place for each partner organization.
A short film will sample some of the methods we will use in our educational approach. The film will provide an insight on the high quality learning opportunities that the Children in Permaculture project will bring to children, kindergartens and schools, other educators and parents. The film will be available in all 5 languages of the partner countries (subtitles).
A manual – “Permaculture Education for Children” – will be created and designed as a thorough guide, and will contain everything needed in order for kindergarten and school teachers, leaders, parents and other educators to share permaculture with children. The manual will include methodological guidelines, and 7 session plans, activities and other resources, posters for classrooms, and dissemination strategy.The Methodological guidelines will aim to inspire, guide and give self-esteem to the educators, to understand what is appropriate for their children, kindergarten and schools and how to implement sessions and activities about permaculture and organize children friendly events.
Formal and non-formal educators will work together throughout this project to develop holistic and innovative approaches to embedding permaculture into learning experiences for children aged 3-12 years. In order to pass this knowledge onto educators we will create a training course in which kindergarten and school teachers will learn to teach permaculture to children using the resources created.