PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE (PDC)
Live in-Person
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
September 2025 to June 2026
Are you ready to become an Earth Healer?
ABOUT THIS COURSE
Becoming an Earth Healer
This Permaculture Design Course (PDC) is an intensive ecological design course that combines theory and practical hands-on learning with a grounding in spirit and a focus on social justice and ecofeminism. Come learn practical earth healing and gain the skills to regenerate land and community. We use a diverse set of teaching tools that encourage experiential and participatory learning, combining theory with practice, lectures with hands-on projects, sound science with ritual, meditation, story—and lots of fun! We will challenge consumerism, and explore ways to advocate for, and create a culture of sustainability, compassion and equity.
full certificate course
Attend all session and complete a design project to earn a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). The PDC covers a broad range of subjects to provide a holistic overview of Permaculture systems and sustainable living.
Individual sessions
This PDC consists of 10 sessions. Each session is a standalone event that can be taken for targeted learning or continuing education. Mix and match to fit your needs. Click here to register for a session.
Topics & Themes
- Evidence for change & the ethics of sustainability
- Principles of permaculture
- Observation & landscape analysis
- Ecological planning & design methods
- Organic food production and food security
- Climatic factors in design
- Soils: natural soil improvement
- Integrated animal systems
- Water : harvesting, conservation, and management
- Agroforestry & forest gardening
- Appropriate technologies & renewable energy systems
- Mapping & design exercises
- Techniques and design strategies for both urban & rural applications
- Ecovillages & sustainable human settlements
- Cultivating inner sources of hope and resilience
- Honoring ancestral and indigenous wisdom
Where can I go after the Course?
- Embark on new farming practices
- Start a permaculture diploma program
- Find ways of dramatically reducing energy consumption
- Begin land-based ventures & small businesses such as: nurseries, landscape design consultancies, etc.
- Realize goals towards self-sufficiency
City dwellers have found that even with little or no land, permaculture shows them how to work with their home to produce food, reduce energy needs, live more ecologically and in closer connection with their communities. Educators, farm advisers, international development workers, garden directors, builders, master gardeners, and landscape architects have all reported that what they’ve learned in this course has become a foundation for their work. Farmers, nursery owners, foresters and livestock farmers have all found that permaculture design has multiplied their incomes, reduced their work, and improved the health of their stock.
This course aims to be a courageous space for people who are/were exposed to any form of discrimination. Welcome!
Course Content
Introduction to Permaculture
Sept. 21st
- Introduction to permaculture
- Permaculture principles
- Permaculture ethics
- Zones
- Sectors
- Patterns in nature
Site Analysis, Mapping, and Design
Oct. 18th
Observation and Design
- Observation
- Microclimates
- Understanding Land forms
- Site analysis
- Design Process
- Mapping
Permaculture Weekend #1
Nov. 15th – 16th
Saturday – Soils
- Soil biology
- Soil Nutrient
- Fungi
- Soil Building
- Compost
- Compost tea
- Vermaculture (Worms)
- Cover crops
- Biochar
- Humanure
- Compost toilets
Sunday – Water
- Site Tour
- Swales
- Roof Catchment,
- Water Storage
Cleaning Water and Managing Waste
Dec. 14th
- Treating grey water
- Treating black water
- Water Filtration
- Compost toilets
- Digital mapping
Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Mgt.
Jan. 11th
- Disaster preparedness
- Disaster response
- Bioremediation
- Appropriate technology
* This schedule is tentative and may shift due to guest speaker availability. If you are looking to attend a single weekend, confirm monthly topic with Charles Williams.
Plants
Feb. 8th
- Climate change and plants
- Plants guild
- Plant palettes/ what plants to use
- Soil building
- No-till
- Sheet mulching
- Other planting strategies
- Selecting plants
Food Forests & Animals
March 8th
- Animal needs and yields
- Animal breeds and management
- Holistic Grazing
- Food forests
- Propagation (theory)
- Coppice /pollard
- Pruning
- Selecting trees
Invisible systems & Design Project Review
April 19th
- What is wealth?
- Alternative finance systems
- Regenerative economy
- Land ownership
- Land trusts & easements
- Land back / alt. land tax
- Design Projects Review
Permaculture Weekend #2
May 16th and 17th
Day 1: Hands-on propagation and gardening
- Seed starting
- Soil mixes
- Propagation – cuttings
- Propagation – division
- Pruning
- Sheet Mulching
Day 2:
Permaculture in action & soil building
- Natural building tour
- Hands-on soil building
- Worm-bins
- Composting
- Compost tea
- Biochar
- Mushrooms
Design Presentations
June 14th
- Design presentations
- What’s next?
- Graduation
Take the entire class for the Certificate, or select individual sessions for targeted learing.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
COURSE INFORMATION
- Location: Ecology Action Center, Halifax, NS Canada
- Dates: Sept 21th, 2025 – June 14thth, 2026
- Time: Sunday’s 9am -5pm once-a-month, with two weekend long intensive, one in the fall of 2024 and one in the spring of 2025
- A certificate will be awarded upon successful completion of this course.
- Completion includes attending classes and submitting a final design project.
PAYMENT
- We are dedicated to making our courses as accessible as possible.
- Full Certificate Tuition: $140/ month ($1400 total CAD)
- Individual Class Tuition: $75 for a single Sunday session, $400 for a spring weekend.
- Diversity scholarships available, see below
* All amounts in CAD
QUESTIONS?
We are here for you. Please reach out to: Charles Williams
Payment & Accommodation
Payment Options
We are dedicated to making this course work for you, and offer a range of options for payment.
- Certificate Student. For students looking to get the most out of this course. Full registration $1400, covers all course instruction.
- Payment Plan for Certificate Students. Pay as you go $140/month.
- Non-Certificate Students. Students looking to attend only selected classes, and who don’t want a certificate, can attend individual session for $75/class and $400/weekend.
- Diversity scholarships. Available for Indigenous and People of Color (See below for details.)
- Group Discounts 15% 0ff. For those who are coming as a group of 3 or more people, the cost is $1190/person.
DIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS
Earth Activist Training is committed to increasing the diversity of global permaculture and regenerative land movements. Permaculture teaches us to look at patterns, and we see a recurring pattern of devaluing and dehumanizing People of Color that extends back through the centuries, including the histories of enslavement, the genocide of indigenous peoples, segregation, exploitation, and much more. In acknowledgement, we offer diversity scholarships as a form of reparations.
Supported by donations, a select number of pay-what-you-can Diversity Scholarships are available for Indigenous Peoples and People of Color working towards environmental and food justice.
These scholarships are pay-what-you-can with the recommended value of 50% tuition ($625), but any amount is accepted and appreciated.
Your fees include
- A life-changing learning experience
- Skills in regenerative living
- A PDC Certificate
- Digital resources
- Connection to the larger permaculture community
- And much more!
MEET YOUR TEACHER
Charles Williams (he/him) is Earth Activist Training’s program director. A long-time permaculture educator and certified permaculture designer, Charles comes to Earth Activist Training through a love of the wild, faith that healthy communities can solve complex problems, and a belief that working with one’s hands is sacred work.
Over the past thirty years, he has stewarded many pieces of land, including Diana’s Grove in Missouri, Farm & Wilderness summer camp in Vermont, and Starhawk’s Golden Rabbit Ranch in California. His approach simultaneously promotes both the preservation of wild spaces and conservation of the domestic.
His deep respect for and relationship with the divine in nature informs all he does, integrating spiritual practices with land management. Charles also understands the need for healthy community and knows that skilled human implementation is an essential part of any design. In these challenging times, he finds hope for the future through the interlocking, symbiotic relationship of spirit, community, and action.
As an accomplished tinkerer, Charles brings a wide range of practical and somewhat obscure hand skills. He has installed complex systems such as solar electric arrays, gray water filters, and veggie oil diesel conversions. He has implemented simple systems such as emergency water filtration, humanure composting toilets, and rotational grazing plans. He is talented in wilderness tracking, solo canoeing, gathering and tending wild edibles, starting fire by hand, and mapping. He loves to work with his hands, whether he is tanning hides or repairing a generator, and this love is reflected when he teaches EAT’s hands-on segments.
Charles believes that no problems are unsolvable as long as we work together to develop and implement our plan effectively, and honor the holy in our work.
THE EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING DIFFERENCE
Grounding in spirit and a focus on organizing and activism
Exploring solutions for climate change– and the strategies and organizing tools to implement them
Creating strength and abundance through biomimicry– human systems that learn from natural systems
Learning principles and practices for how to read the landscape, build healthy soil, clean water, and design integrated and sustainable food systems
SOCIAL PERMACULTURE
Social Permaculture = RESILIENCE
Social permaculture is the Earth Activist Training difference. It teaches us how to organize our human communities, resolve conflicts, make decisions, and work together effectively to maintain our spirits.
We are continuously looking to enhance our current online trainings with the magic of our in-person gatherings which are taught interactively including songs, ceremony, and a variety of practical, hands-on, outdoor projects.
International Certification
Teachers of Earth Activist Training’s courses are recognized for their excellence by the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) . All graduates from this Permaculture Design Course will be registered as a PINA certified graduate.
A component of every Earth Activist Training course is our private forum: Earth Activist Training Online network. This platform is where you will find course resources and a network to connect with classmates and other Earth Activist students.
Register
Click here to Register
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