Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
15 Nov 2006
Here is another exercise from Earth Education that is as effective with adults as with children. Simply make some small artists pallette-shaped pieces of card about 3″ by 2″, and put double sided sticky tape on them. When you are out with your group in a (preferably broadleaved) woodland, make the observation to the group that although as you look around you in the wood here it all looks to be just two colours, green and brown, if you look closely you will be able to find all the colours an artist would need. Invite them to just take ‘dabs’, tiny pieces, of leaves, bark, moss, fungi, clay, whatever, to try and build a full spectrum of colours. It can take 20 – 30 minutes to do this, and people are completely engrossed.
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13 Nov 2006
An Earthwalk is a wonderful exercise for getting people out into Nature and seeing it in a completely different way. Originally developed for using with children ages 10-13, I use it with adults, and have seen the power of its affect on all ages. I once taught a course in Ireland, and one man who was in the Gardai, sad afterwards he was completely blown away by it. He subsequently left the Gardai and opened a shop selling green paints and so on… . Over the next few days I’ll tell you my 5 favourite Earthwalk activities.
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13 Nov 2006
One of the sustainability projects I have the most admiration for is The Village project in Cloughjordan in Ireland. Nine years ago when we began the Baile Dulra ecovillage project which later became The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability, we worked with some people who subsequently went on to become the core initiators of The Village. The people at the heart of The Village are amazing people. The project has been going for 9 years, and still none of them has got to build the house they have dreamt of every day of those 9 years. They have faced the coming and going of new people, setbacks, financial struggles, and a rate of progress which must at times have seemed interminable. Yet they are nearly there, and what they will finally create is really extraordinary.
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10 Nov 2006
The last two events in the Transition Town Totnes programme are two of the most exciting. We are delighted firstly to be able to welcome **Richard Heinberg**, the author of The Party’s Over, Powerdown and his new book The Oil Depletion Protocol to Totnes. On Wednesday 22nd November he will be giving one of only two public talks on his short visit to the UK, with the title **“Peak Oil: Local Solutions to a Global Challenge
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9 Nov 2006
**Notes from A Trip to the Agroforesty Research Trust‘s Forest Garden, Dartington, Totnes, Devon. Friday November 3rd 2006.**
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Martin Crawford started his forest garden at Dartington 15 years ago. It has now reached a point where it is very developed, and was referred to in Dave Jacke’s Edible Forest Garden books as the best example of a forest garden he has seen. Martin is internationally recognised as one of the foremost practitioners of agroforestry in the world, (but amazingly very few people in Totnes have heard of him!).
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Here is another exercise from Earth Education that is as effective with adults as with children. Simply make some small artists pallette-shaped pieces of card about 3″ by 2″, and put double sided sticky tape on them. When you are out with your group in a (preferably broadleaved) woodland, make the observation to the group that although as you look around you in the wood here it all looks to be just two colours, green and brown, if you look closely you will be able to find all the colours an artist would need. Invite them to just take ‘dabs’, tiny pieces, of leaves, bark, moss, fungi, clay, whatever, to try and build a full spectrum of colours. It can take 20 – 30 minutes to do this, and people are completely engrossed.
