Preparing Our Children For a Resilient Future, Part IV: Localisation and Community
Alternatives to Political Systems, Community Projects, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Food Shortages, People Systems, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson October 23, 2012
Our local areas and community are likely to play a much bigger role in our future resilience, so it makes sense to begin to include active community participation in our children’s lives. Children often enjoy having a sense of being an important part of something that matters and even young children can develop a feeling of ‘ownership’ in their particular part of a project. When children feel vitally involved they will take much more of an interest and be open to taking on board new ideas and skills that will be invaluable to them in the future.
There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Community is a really great educational vehicle — after all, it’s the way young people learned their life skills in past times. We can once again make it a part of the way we prepare our children for times to come.
Below are some ideas for ways children can begin to get involved with developing greater community spirit in their neighbourhood.
Comments (5)Preparing Our Children For a Resilient Future, Part III: Water
Biodiversity, Biological Cleaning, Conservation, Consumerism, Deforestation, Education, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Potable Water, Regional Water Cycle, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Storm Water, Village Development, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Anthea Hudson October 18, 2012
Water — without it life on earth could not exist and yet it is often treated with little care or respect, especially by more affluent communities. Clean drinking water is actually a valuable and diminishing resource, due to all the toxins that are carelessly allowed to make their way into our water systems.
These statistics about water may surprise you and give you a greater understanding about just how important it is that we protect water, especially our potable water.
75% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water — however 97% of that water is the salt water of our oceans. That only leaves 3%, but 2% of that is frozen and only 0.5% is actually usable fresh water! Just 0.5% of all the water on Earth. Kinda brings the point home, doesn’t it?
As you can probably see, it is therefore vital that we help our children understand the value of water, the importance of protecting it and ways in which they can use it more sustainably.
Below are some ideas for introducing these concepts to your children… some of them quite a bit of fun, but with very important messages behind them.
Comments (4)Richard Heinberg to Speak in Australia
Presentations/Demonstrations, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson August 3, 2012
Richard Heinberg, one of the world’s foremost peak oil educators, is finally making a much anticipated speaking tour of Australia in September this year (2012). See the speaking schedule further down this post to find a location near you.
Heinberg is a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and renowned author of ten books dealing with declining resources, with particular focus on oil, the latest one being ‘The End of Growth’.
This video introduces you to Heinberg’s concepts, as he discusses The End of Growth.
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Preparing Our Children For a Resilient Future, Part I: Recycling
Consumerism, Education, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Anthea Hudson July 3, 2012
Our Role as Facilitators
Having been a home educator for nearly 18 years, I have become aware of the value of hands-on experiences for helping children learn and really understand concepts — experiences that are relevant to their lives and help prepare them for a real future, in much more than just academic ways.
We as parents, or educators, can help children explore the concepts and skills they will need to develop to equip them for the very different future they will no doubt be facing. Often our role will just be to be there and help with materials and tips if needed. A lot of the value of these discoveries is in allowing children to experiment, make ‘mistakes’ now and then, and to find workable solutions. I think we should try to curb the natural desire to solve the problems which may occur, immediately, and give the children a chance to sort it out themselves first.
The activities in this article, and those in following parts of this series, are designed to get kids involved with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of creating a more resilient lifestyle and understanding how the things in our world connect and how we can all help these connections to flow naturally. In Part I we will look at various aspects of recycling.
Comments (0)Preparing Our Children For a Resilient Future, Part II: Food Security
Community Projects, Compost, Consumerism, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Soil Biology, Trees, Urban Projects, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson
I doubt many would disagree that food is one of the most important things that we are going to need to become reconnected to, in times to come. Without a reliable food source, much hardship can be predicted and even potentially losses of life. In the future, food security will probably rely much more on sources of our own creation, by producing food ourselves and establishing networks with others in our community.
We will also need to acquire the knowledge to put these food systems into practice. It’s one thing to have wheat seeds to plant, but wheat doesn’t grow and become bread by itself. We have to know, and become proficient in, the processes involved in whatever we plan to produce — preferably before there is an urgent necessity to do so!
The activities below will introduce your children (and you!) to some of the principles and practices of creating food resilience.
Comments (8)Getting Kids Into Gardening, Part IV: Creativity in the Garden
Education, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants — by Anthea Hudson May 23, 2012
Inspiring our children to develop an enthusiasm for gardening is a wonderful gift we, as parents or caregivers, can give them. This theme revolves around using the garden and its produce as an outlet for creativity. The following ideas will hopefully help give you some starting points for helping your children make the most of the garden in a myriad of ways. Use just one idea, combine several, or come up with your own ideas.
Mazes
Children are often fascinated by mazes. They can create their own living mazes, either on a miniature scale with low growing plants, or a full-scale hedge maze, if you have the room and can afford the plants. Get your kids to create a simple maze design on paper first (graph paper might be handy) and then lay it out on the ground using tent pegs or stakes and string. Alternatively, they could lay little stones or sticks out to mark the design.
Comments (5)Getting Kids Into Gardening, Part III: Creating a Resilience Garden
Education, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems — by Anthea Hudson May 11, 2012
Hands-on experience in getting the most out of a garden is going to be an invaluable skill in the challenging times ahead and getting kids enthusiastically involved, in their early years, is important for their future resilience. Giving your garden (or part of it) a theme can help inspire children and this particular garden theme — a Resilience Garden — may particularly appeal to boys, which is not to say girls won’t enjoy it also, of course!
A Resilience Garden helps provide some of the things you may need, that can be grown rather than obtained from an outside source, if necessary, thereby making your family more self-sufficient. The following are some ideas you might like to have your children try in your Resilience Garden. Some of them only take a short time to grow to a useable state, other things are more long term projects… but you’ve got to start somewhere!
Comments (5)Sustainable Garden Design Workshops – Event Round-up (Adelaide, South Australia)
Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Presentations/Demonstrations — by Anthea Hudson April 3, 2012
A series of free Sustainable Garden Design Workshops were held at various locations around Adelaide, South Australia, over the past couple of months and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the one held in the suburb of Salisbury, along with quite a large number of other people. All of the events were basically booked out, which shows the growing enthusiasm for creating sustainable gardens.
The day was hot, but the participants were eager and undaunted by the heat, as they soaked up the gems of knowledge our guests had to share!
Comments (0)Let’s Explore Ridley Grove Community Garden! (Adelaide, South Australia)
Community Projects, Land, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Anthea Hudson March 24, 2012
What do you do with an old church car park? Turn it into a community garden, of course! And that’s how the Ridley Grove Community Garden — a child, pet and disabled person friendly garden in the Adelaide suburb of Woodville Gardens — came into being.
The first thing they did was to bring in the experts to help clear the grass… a herd of hard working, hungry goats! Now that’s chemical free weed control… with built in fertiliser! Next came the soil building, with lots of compost and mulch, which turned a compacted surface of gravel and dolomite into fertile, productive garden beds.
Comments (6)Flinders Ranges in the Spotlight – Autumn Seasonal Events in the National Park
Biodiversity, Community Projects, Consumerism, Society — by Anthea Hudson March 17, 2012
Twice a year, over the school holidays in the Australian states of South Australia and Victoria, the Flinders Ranges comes alive, with a series of activities aimed to provide an insight into this majestic, yet environmentally sensitive area.
Comments (3)Suburban Permaculture with Janet Barocco and Richard Heinberg
Compost, Consumerism, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Irrigation, Land, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Trees, Urban Projects, Water Harvesting, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 14, 2012
Richard Heinberg not only talks the talk, but also walks the walk, as we get to see in the video at bottom. Peak Moment host, Janaia Donaldson, visits Heinberg and his partner Janet Barocco in their own venture in sustainable living in suburban Santa Rosa, California.
When they bought the place in 2001 it was a complete disaster, Richard tells Janaia, but it had advantages that drew them to it, such as being within walking distance of where they worked and shopping areas, having a large ¼ acre block and the house itself being small enough that they felt capable of remodelling and caring for it.
The ‘before’ shot
William Kamkwamba – The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Energy Systems, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 13, 2012
When we think of wind power, we most likely think either of the huge wind farms now dotted across the globe, or the good ol’ country windmills that have been the backbone of our outback stations’ water supply.
But how often do we hear of windmills being built from scratch, let alone in a poor African nation, such as Malawi?
William Kamkwamba did just this, and we can share his story in his autobiography, his children’s edition of the book and also on various interviews and documentaries on him that have been produced, some of which I discuss in more depth below.
I read his book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind a few months back and found it quite moving. It brings home some harsh realities, which some people may wish to remain blind too… but these aren’t written in a sensational way, rather just an honest re-telling of daily life, by a young man. But it’s not all about hard times and despair. It’s about the way William was able to move beyond just accepting his lot in life, to create something remarkable to turn it around — a fully working windmill, cobbled together out of junk parts and what he had on hand.
And possibly the most remarkable thing of all? William was only 14 years old when he did this!
Comments (7)Sail Power Reborn – Transporting Local Goods by Boat
Community Projects, Energy Systems, Markets & Outlets, Processing & Food Preservation, Village Development, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 9, 2012
Peak Moment host Janaia Donaldson joins Fulvio Casali, Kathy Pelish and Alex Tokar, co-founders of the Salish Sea Trading Cooperative, on the deck of the sailboat Soliton, docked in Ballard, near Seattle, Washington.
The Salish Sea Trading Cooperative have teamed up with Nash’s organic produce in Sequim, where twice a month they arrive by sailboat, to collect the produce, before heading back to Ballard for distribution to the local community through their CSA scheme.
Comments (0)An Experiment in Back Yard Sustainability – and a Revisit, Four Years On
Community Projects, Consumerism, Demonstration Sites, Food Shortages, Plant Systems, Village Development, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 7, 2012
Part I
Scott McGuire of ‘White Sage Gardens’, Janaia Donaldson’s guest for this episode of Peak Moment, asks the question: What would it look like if we were to really start feeding ourselves?
Comments (5)Getting Kids Into Gardening, Part II: Create a Pizza Garden
Compost, Education, Food Plants - Annual, Medicinal Plants, Rehabilitation, Soil Composition — by Anthea Hudson
Pizza making with home grown produce
Gardening can be an invaluable tool for helping children explore all kinds of things — from chemistry to botany, healthy eating to interactions within a natural system. It also promotes a connection with the earth and an understanding of where food comes from and what is involved in producing it.
Kids love to eat what they have grown, so why not combine that with another kid’s favourite — pizza! Let your children try growing all of their favourite veggie pizza toppings.
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