Apply for the Eco Practicum Today!--Deadline, April 1st

Eco Practicum is a summer program for college students & recent graduates. Part think-tank, part action-workshop, participants live on an environmental education facility in the heart of the Catskills and get the opportunity to farm, learn from peers, and meet with the foremost experts in the field.

Participants can apply for 1 up to all 4 of the Eco Practicum units, which are:

• Growing Enough Food: The Role of Organic, Local Produce in the Global Food System
• Pets, Pests, Livestock: The Value, Role & Treatment of Animals
• Digging and Drilling: Using Fossil Fuels & the Hope/Hype of Renewable Energy
• This Land is Your Land: Natural Resource Management in an Age of (Over)Consumption

Participants meet with representatives from over 30 organizations, including the NRDC, Greenmarket, Catskill Mountainkeeper, and National Park Service.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and the deadline to apply is April 1. For more info & to apply online, visit www.EcoPracticum.com

7th Annual Vermont Organics Recycling Summit, March 28th

Managing Organics As A Resource: Vermont Takes Up The Challenge 

Thursday, March 28, 2013 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Vermont Technical College, Judd Hall
Randolph Center, Vermont 05061 

In 2012 the Vermont legislature passed a Universal Recycling Bill that includes a phased-in ban on the landfilling of all organics (leaf and yard materials, soiled papers, food scraps, food processing residuals, etc.). With about 20% of the needed infrastructure already in place, this year’s Summit will focus on next steps for Vermont businesses, institutions and communities to meet this mandate.

For more information and to register for the event, click here!

Metta Earth Leadership Training: Generation Now

In a world of massive global upheaval, accelerating climate change, and the end of cheap oil, the time is ripe for awakening, transformation, and change. From this chaotic turbulence, great initiatives are coalescing, and with immense passion and energy an emerging generation of leaders is responding to the trumpeting call.

During a leadership training you will, deepen personal inner transformation while building the skills and knowledge to lead, empower, and teach others. This all happens within the daily rhythms of a working organic farm and is supported by specific lessons on sustainable farming, social change organizing, primitive skills, wilderness education, and homesteading life-ways.

DATES:
June 15-30
July 6-21
July 29 - August 4

For more information on the program, click here!

Summer 2013: UVM Connects You to Sustainable Business Experts

Sustainable Business Program: Practices in Support of People, Profit & Principles

• Online portion: May 20-June 14, 2013
• On-campus portion: June 3-7, 2013

Kick your career in sustainability into high gear by exploring the 3Ps (people, profit, principle) and more this summer with the University of Vermont.UVM’s Sustainable Business Program connects you with experts, thought leaders, and companies on the leading edge of sustainable business. You get to learn the management practices that have made Vermont enterprises sustainable and profitable from the very business leaders who have forged the way.

Register now and learn more about the program by clicking here!

International Agroecology Summer Course at UVM

Register Online at:

PSS 212: http://www.uvm.edu/~summer/course-detail/?crn=60819

ENVS 212: http://www.uvm.edu/~summer/course-detail/?crn=61007

Oxfam America Free Training for Global Advocates in D.C. April 13-16--Sign up on February 14th!

Fight global hunger, support women farmers – join the Oxfam Action Corps! 

Oxfam America, an international relief and development organization, invites you to join the Oxfam Action Corps, an exciting grassroots effort to stand up to poverty, hunger, and injustice around the world – starting right in your community.  The Oxfam Action Corps is a group of dedicated volunteers in fifteen US cities who work alongside other local volunteers in support of our GROW campaign for policies that will save lives, defend the rights of women and farmers, and protect communities worldwide from rising food prices and climate change.  It includes a free national advocacy and leadership training for select participants. You will gain leadership skills, have fun, and change the world!

Sign-up February 14 to volunteer with your local group or to apply for Oxfam’s free four-day leadership training in Washington D.C. April 13-16, 2013:  www.oxfamactioncorps.org  Anybody can join the local effort.   All levels of experience are welcome. 

Students Scholarships available for the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference on April 15th & 16th--Applications due by February 15th

Student Scholarships – Application deadline in one week!

We are now accepting applications from full-time, currently enrolled college students interested in receiving a limited number of complimentary registrations to attend the conference.  Click here to find out more.  Applications are due by February 15, 2013.

Keynote Address by Van Jones

Van Jones is the founder of Green For All, a national organization working to get green jobs to disadvantaged communities. He was the main advocate for the Green Jobs Act; signed into law by George W. Bush in 2007, the Act was the first piece of federal legislation to codify the term “green jobs.” Under the Obama administration, it has resulted in $500 million for green job training nationally. 

Van is president and co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered innovations to help fix the U.S. economy.  A Yale-educated attorney, Van has written two New York Times Best Sellers: The Green Collar Economy, the definitive book on green jobs, and Rebuild the Dream, a roadmap for progressives in 2012 and beyond.

Van’s keynote address will address how colleges and universities can support and promote a new green economy.

3rd Annual Whole Systems Design Permaculture Design Course from August 16 to 25, 2013—Registration Now Open!

This course offers an unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on applied permaculture skills immersed within one of North America's most diverse and intensive permaculture research sites.  Participants will engage with high-performance home and community resource systems that will be more resilient in the face of problems posed by peak oil, climate change, environmental toxicity, and the inability of existing economic and social systems to deal with such challenges.  Participants have the unique opportunity to live in a working small farm and homestead and see exactly what opportunities and challenges arise in developing and maintaining a productive and resilient home and land resource system. The site represents numerous cutting edge design opportunities for developing a self-reliant, liberated lifestyle customized for the cold climate, temperate biome. 

This course includes the standard certificate curriculum but goes beyond the typical Designer's Certification Course by utilizing the background of skills-based trainings offered in Whole Systems Skills, and is filled with practice-based, learning-by-doing experiences, not only concept and information-based study.

For more information go to http://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/permaculture-design-course/

Green Works Winter Meeting with Keynote Speaker, Doug Tallamy - “Bringing Nature Home”, February 13th

The Vermont Chapter of The Nature Conservancy is collaborating with Green Works, Vermont Nursery & Landscape Association, to promote the propagation, sale and use of native plants. Come to hear entomologist Doug Tallamy, Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and author of award winning “Bringing Nature Home; How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens”. 

Because our yards and gardens are part of the terrestrial ecosystems that sustain humans and the life around us, it is essential that we keep them in working order.  Doug Tallamy will discuss the important ecological roles of the plants in our landscapes, emphasize the benefits of designing gardens with these roles in mind, and explore the consequences of failing to do so.  Gardening in this crowded world carries both moral and ecological responsibilities that we can no longer ignore.

Learn more about Doug here.

WHEN: February 13^th, 10:30-Noon

WHERE: UVM’s Davis Center in Burlington

The presentation is open to the general public at limit of 75 people.

For details on cost and registration please see below.  For registration go to http://greenworksvermont.org/2013/01/06/green-worksvnla-winter-meeting-and-trade-show-2013-2/

31st Annual NOFA-VT Winter Conference, February 15-17 at UVM

Click on this link for more information: http://nofavt.org/annual-events/winter-conference

The Community Kitchen Academy in Burlington—accepting applications for student enrollment in February session, starts on February 8

The Community Kitchen Academy prepares underemployed and unemployed Vermonters for a career in the food service industry and lifelong learning through an intensive program of culinary skills development, career readiness and job placement. Students actively develop and apply new skills by creating wholesome meals for those at risk of hunger using food that has been gathered from within our communities that may otherwise go to waste.

Students are eligible for a weekly attendance bonus of $50 and a graduation bonus of $200, culinary equipment and uniforms. Students can qualify for up to 9 accredited college credits, receive certified training for ServeSafe Food Safety and are assisted in finding full-time employment. The program has a 86% job placement rate.

The training session is 13 weeks long and requires attendance from 9 AM to 3:30 PM, Monday through Thursday and 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM on Fridays.

Interviews will be held during the week of January 28, 2012.

Classes are located and applications may be obtained at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf at 228 North Winooski Avenue in Burlington. You can request one via email attachment by writing to jeisenberg@cvoeo.org

Call Chef Jamie Eisenberg at (802) 540-2571 to set up an appointment.

Burlington Phenology Guild—Offered by The Rock Point School

In this program interested learners, budding naturalists and phenologists alike will turn their eyes and ears to the land, fine tuning their senses while engaging directly with the land.

COST: Register for three sections or the whole year. Program meets on THIRD SATURDAY of every month.

·       Feb 16 – Mar 16 – April 20 – May 18     $40.00

·       June 15 – July 20 – August 17                 $30.00

·       Sept-Oct-Nov-Dec                                     $40.00

·       Register for all year                                  $100.00

·       Sliding scale/scholarships available

Registration on a first-come, first serve basis until full. Limit:25

For more information contact:

        Kathy Rossman: krossman@rockpoint.org

        Peter McConville: pmcconvi@bsdvt.org