Past Courses and Educational Programs

 

After returning from our fifth annual tour planting 1000 fruit trees in urban schools across California, we asked ourselves how else can we give back to the earth? Plant more trees, we thought. The weekend will be a festive celebration of life, spring, and stewardship of our beloved planet. Join Common Vision to plant 1,500 trees on five acres of National Forest. Forest base camp is in Alder Springs, less than 3 hours from the Bay Area, Ukiah, and Grass Valley, located southwest of Chico. 

Weekend Includes: ~ Tree planting  ~ Organic vegetarian meals  ~ Forest camping  ~ Campfire singing  ~ Yoga classes

Daily Acts Sustainability Tours showcase examples of abundant bioregional living including: local organic farms, Permaculture gardens, green and natural buildings, vegetable oil powered vehicles, and many other leading ecological solutions that anyone can apply! In the spring of 2008, Common Vision will be joining forces with Daily Acts to create a planting experience that is certain to open minds and hearts to the potential and possibility for permaculture design in the North Bay Area. This daylong planting adventure will include travel onboard one of Common Vision’s vegetable-oil powered buses, transforming numerous Petaluma yards into food forests, drumming, grafting your own fruit tree, organic lunch, a Common Vision theatrical performance, and a powerful celebration of Spring. 

In the Winter and Spring of 2003 and 2004, Common Vision had the opportunity to run an Ecological Design course through Pomona College.   Students from Pomona, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges came aboard the Common Vision bus for a Permaculture Design Certification Course.  For the remainder of the college semester, the students worked with a San Antonio Continuation High School class 5 days a week to develop a gard en and garden-based learning experience.  The high school students made compost, built and prepared garden beds, brewed biodiesel, constructed a cob bench, and grew vegetables and fruit trees.

Both college and high school students received credit towards graduation.  Many of the college students took the inspiration and experience from this course and have become ecological designers, educators, and practitioners.       

In January 2004, Common Vision ran the world’s first veggie-oil-powered mobile permaculture design course PDC.  Eight students from Pomona College, a media team, and two permaculture design teachers lived aboard The Lioness.  For 11 days, students learned the 72-hour Permaculture Design Curriculum at exemplary sites across Southern California.  The course included sites and teachers that could best facilitate projects and demonstrations to illustrate different aspects of the PDC curriculum.

In the Winter and Spring of 2002-03 , Common Vision ran its first permaculture design course. Twelve students from three colleges around Claremont, CA joined Common Vision for 7 weekend intensives.  Students experienced numerous sites and teachers across Southern CA and Mexico that highlight different aspects of sustainable design.