Edge Collective

Field School Prototyping

Developing field school curricula.

Background

We're beginning to sketch out an informal 'field school' curriculum, intended for both adults and kids, and focused on skills and projects relevant to climate adaptation, local food production, and community resilience.

The working thesis behind this project is that the development of skills relevant to a lower-energy, 'post-carbon' world -- e.g., learning to grow, prepare, and preserve food; salvaging, repairing, and repurposing old equipment; building DIY musical instruments -- is also simply 'good pedagogy', regardless of what the future holds.

References

Some related projects / precedents:

Whole Systems Health Permaculture Kids Camp

Field School Topics

A preliminary list of possible topics around which to develop workshops and collaborations is below.

Food

Food preservation
Mini underground cold storage
Cold frame building
Community plots / raised beds
Crops in water-saturated field
Mobile greenhouses
Mobile chicken coop
Cooking outdoors
Outdoor kitchen and handwashing station
Seed starting

Shelter

Yurt
Treehouse
Trailer-based
Tarps
Tents
Bug-proof netting
Platform
Walkways

Heating

Wood stove construction
Sauna
Hot tub

Water

Drip irrigation
Rain barrel collection (expand to tarp-fed, greenhouse-fed)
Small pond / reservoir

Energy

Solar panels + charging + batteries
Energy estimates and arithmetic

Communications

Radio

Navigation

Off-grid GPS
Maps
Compass
Celestial

Arts

Building musical instruments

Community

Preparing food for a large gathering

Example classes and workshops